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Jackson Overland is 6 when he falls out of his first tree. He hits concrete, sharp stones tearing through skin still soft with innocence, leaving his knees gashed, open, and pouring with blood. And the pain is so much, too much, making tears he punches away with his hands as he sits on the ground alone. He really should call for help. He really should.
But he knows his parents are at work. And he knows how annoyed they get when he simply speaks to them, when they aren’t busy. And, even at such a young age, he knows crying while they have something more important to do will get even worse results than that.
So he reasons not to bother at all. He stands up, biting down the pain, stumbling home with blood running down his legs. He has to wipe them down with tissues, and those scars stick for a good 10 years after that day. But at least he didn’t need help.
Jackson Overland is 11 when he gets into a fight. Well, he’ll call it a fight, but the boys at school would probably call it a beating (because their cowards, and too scared to admit Jack’s not weak and that Jack doesn’t need help). He was caught off guard at the park, and it’s probably just the shock from it happening so quickly that’s left him panting on the ground, unable to see from one eye and blood sharp on his tongue.
But his hearing is still fine, fine enough to hear his sister calling out for him. And he knows that if she sees him like this, she’ll get worried, she’ll get sad and upset and start crying, and the last thing Jack wants is for her to cry. So he reasons it’s best to just stand up, place a smirk on those cheeks, and stumble over with a most certainly true story about how he totally stood his ground, and they can keep playing, no matter how much Jack wants to just take his own eye out right then and there.
Jackson Overland is 14 when he has a sensory overload. It’s certainly not the first, he can recall having them back before he was 6, but it’s never been in public. Never in school. With so many eyes that could catch every flinch, every panicked breath, every tear. And it just piles onto that nauseating mess, that blur of colours and screaming laughter and words that feel like a hammer at his skull and stab at his ears-
-And he knows how kids are. How everyone is. How they laugh at the weak, at the pathetic, at the ones who need help. And he knows teachers are the exact damn same. That all they’ll deliver him is prying questions or pitying looks or roaring anger, or even worse, the same damn laughter. So he reasons it’s best to skip all that, lock himself on the roof, and let the panic run itself dry. He does just that, and deals with that awful numbness for the rest of the day.
Jackson Overland is 16 when he becomes homeless. When his parents have enough of, well, pretty much everything. The ADHD, the queerness, the aggression, the laughter, the silence. To put it simply: When they have enough of Jack. And it’s the first time in his life he can say everything, literally everything truly hurts. Emotionally, physically (his dad had to literally chuck him onto the streets, huh?), and he’s sure mentally as well, though he pushes through all of it with each stumbling step through the night. He thinks there’s a shelter somewhere this way.
But he stops before he reaches it. He reasons that there’s far too much distance for him to go, and even if he does what if he gets there and there’s no beds for him. Or what if he gets there, there’s a bed, but that means someone else loses that bed. That someone probably deserves help more than he certainly does. After all, he still has lunch in his belly, a hoodie that’s soft enough to sleep in, and as of just now, a bench to lay on. So he does, slumping onto it, and biting back those tears that threaten to fall.
Jackson Overland is 17 when he trusts the wrong person. If you can even call it trust, and not just the desperation for someone to just look at him for once. To see him and to touch him and to know that he exists. But he didn’t want anything else, and the man didn’t like that. Didn’t like the explanation that it didn’t have anything to do with him, that he wasn’t attracted to anyone like that. So much so that he couldn’t help but choke Jack against the wall, couldn’t help but try to get it his way- But Jack’s not weak, and a swift kick is enough to give Jack the second he needs to run for his life. Wheezing and gasping, clutching onto a bruised neck with trembling hands until his body made him collapse in an alleyway. Leaving him a shaking mess on the floor, mind unable to comprehend it. The disgust in his eyes. The hand coiled round his neck with the strength to snap it. The- No. No.
He should get up now. But he can’t. He does consider calling someone- even as he’s blinded by his tears and his hands were wracked with an awful tremor- But he pinpoints the one contact he trusts, Boss North, and he doesn’t even wait for his mind to conjure up that prediction. That disappointed voice, so wrong on such a loving and jolly man, that sad stare that told him he should have known better. Shouldn’t of been so stupid and followed a stranger, shouldn’t of been even stupider and stayed to give an explanation, shouldn’t of been so utterly brain-dead as to give that explanation.
He reasons in his current state, that would ruin him beyond repair. Not just him, everything he’d manage to somehow scrap together over the last year. Besides, he doesn’t even need the help. He can walk- well, heavily lean against the wall and pull- himself back home. And everything would be fine. Nothing would have happened. Nothing happened.
Jackson Overland is 20 when he falls into the lake. It’s so cold, so dark. The shock of the ice practically knocked him out there, but it left him just conscious enough to feel the burn of water in his lungs. To feel the scream of every muscle as they tug and attempt to push him up to the surface. But he can’t, he just can’t reach it, can’t reach that wisp of light. Oh God, he doesn’t want to die.
But there was that split second of reasoning. That if he did, if he stopped struggling, everything would stop. Everything. The longing, the loneliness, the fear of disappointment, the confirmation of disappointment. And nobody really would be left sad. His boss, while lovely, was his boss after all. His sister would never even know, likely. And there was nobody else. Maybe. Maybe he could just…
But then, there was someone else.
“You bloody idiot Frost!”
Everything comes back at once. First his hearing, then the air in his lungs, ice water hacking out and drenching him further, and then his sight. Giving him the lovely image of his Australian co-worker, panting in the panic and drenched in water himself, wild rage but mostly, panic in his eyes. And then he can feel how utterly cold he is, before he’s hit with how warm Aster is. And how tightly he’s holding him, like he never wants to let go.
And it’s stupid of him, but he can’t help but crack, “N- Nice catch, Roo’!”
Years pass, and Jackson Bunnymund-Overland is now 26. And so, so fucking happy. It’s ridiculous how happy Aster makes him, ridiculous how happy Jack makes Aster, and it’s all so ridiculously perfect. Jack does everything in his power to give Aster as much joy as he can, clear that doom and gloom he often finds himself tangled up in, make him laugh that gorgeous laugh and give that stunning smile of his. And in turn Aster fills Jack with such hope. That no matter how bad things get, they’ll always have each other, and they’ll always be okay in the end. All Jack needs to do is reach out to him.
They still work together, but for the sake of all of their shifts not being spent on looking at each other so hopelessly and joyfully in love, Jack works mornings some days while Aster works evenings. Which means some afternoons, Jack’s left with himself. They always like to joke that it was a stupid idea, Jack was a danger to himself and his surroundings if left unattended…
It doesn’t feel very funny now though, that Jack’s knuckles are bleeding. He knows it was stupid of him, god dammit, it’s not like he wanted too. But work was so loud and stressful, and all the cars felt like they were screaming at him every step home, and then an advert came on the television suddenly and- He just snapped.
He knows he should call Aster. They talked about this, agreed upon this that if anything happened to Jack, Aster needed to know at once for both of their sakes. But his mind reasons with him. He’s at work. He’s too busy to even pick up right now. And what if he gets upset, and worried about you? What if he laughs at you and thinks you’re an idiot? What if he gets a call from someone at the same time you call with something VASTLY more important and that person then gets ignored?
What if he’s ashamed of you?
But he slaps his cheek in realisation. Because he knows those aren’t reasons. Their excuses. And he’s not about to lose the one person he loves most in the world…
“Hey Snowflake, you alright?”
… When he can just ask for help.