Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The North was not kind that night.
The wind tore through the frozen trees, shrieking like the lost souls of those who had dared the mountains before. Krampus moved through the drifts with silent purpose, each clawed footfall leaving deep impressions in the untouched snow.

He smelled her before he saw her: Gryla. The scent of smoke and iron, of something old and cruel, carried on the storm. And beneath it, the faint, fragile pulse of Jack’s life. He had almost lost him before. He would not lose him again.

The snow blurred his vision, whipping across the frozen cliffside like needles. Yet Krampus did not falter. Every instinct, every sense sharpened. The storm bent around him and still he moved, unstoppable, driven by one thought: bring Jack home.

---

He found her lair carved into the ice—a jagged cave lit by a pale, unnatural glow. The shadows inside twisted and shifted. Jack lay there, bound and unconscious, his small chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. Even through the frost and grime, Krampus recognized him instantly.

And then he saw her: Gryla, tall and terrible, her eyes glowing in the gloom.

“Gone so long, little prey,” she hissed. “I wondered if you’d learn to run.”

Krampus’s growl rumbled low in his chest. The sound shook the walls, the snow outside answering like a chorus of old gods. His claws dug into the ice. “Release him,” he said, voice older than the mountains themselves.

Gryla laughed, a sound like cracking wood. “And why would I? The boy has been… useful.”

The fight was not long, but it was vicious. Ice shattered, snow cascaded, Gryla’s strikes met Krampus’s massive form with sparks of magic and shadow. He did not fight for glory or revenge—only for Jack. Every swipe, every roar, every protective motion was for the boy he had come to see as his own.

---

Finally, with a surge of strength born of fury and fear, Krampus struck, knocking Gryla back into the cavern wall. She shrieked, retreating into the shadows, but the warning in his gaze followed her. Touch him again, and the mountains themselves will rise against you.

Krampus dropped to his knees beside Jack. The boy’s skin was pale, frost-nipped, but alive. He lifted him carefully, the way one might carry the last ember of a dying fire, and wrapped his cloak around him. Every inch of the storm outside seemed to press in against them, but Krampus carried Jack with a steady, unwavering determination.

Even as he moved, he could feel the bruises forming on his own body—scrapes, scratches, the sting of magic that had grazed him in the fight—but he did not care. Jack’s life was more precious than any wound he could suffer.

---

The journey back through the snow was slow, methodical, silent except for the whistle of the wind and Jack’s soft, uneven breathing. Krampus murmured to him the way one might speak to the living and the dead alike: stories of survival, of strength, of warmth yet to come. Though Jack could not answer, though he could not even see, Krampus felt the pulse of his life under his fingers and the weight of his own heart swell in ways he had never known.

By the time they reached the hidden lodge, the storm had abated into a whisper. Krampus laid Jack gently upon the bed prepared with blankets and herbs, checking each limb, each breath, each heartbeat. Then he stood over him, massive and still, guarding him against a world that had nearly taken him twice.

“I will not let them have you again,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Not Gryla. Not the wind. Not the winter. You are mine to protect.”

Outside, the night sky cleared enough for the northern lights to shimmer faintly, green and gold ribbons dancing in silence over the snow. And inside, Krampus remained at Jack’s side, silent, immovable—a sentinel, a father, a protector, as the first threads of dawn crept over the frozen mountains.

Chapter Text

The lodge lay deep in the mountains, half buried by snow.
Time blurred there — days bled into nights until only the slow crackle of the fire and the rhythm of breath marked the hours.

Krampus kept his vigil.

He was not a gentle creature by nature. Yet the hand that changed Jack’s bandages and cooled his fever was careful, precise, reverent. The boy had barely stirred in weeks. His skin had lost the sun’s color, and his hair had grown unruly across his brow. Every few hours Krampus would lift him slightly, offer a sip of broth, whisper words in a language older than any prayer.

Sometimes Nick would come with supplies, speaking softly at the doorway.
“Still no change?”
Krampus would shake his head once. “He dreams,” was all he said.

And he did.

---

In those dreams, Jack walked corridors that smelled of salt and rain.
He was small again, padding barefoot across cold floors. A woman’s voice echoed somewhere behind a door, too far to reach. A man’s laughter — unfamiliar — faded with the sound of an engine leaving. He remembered standing in the doorway, waiting for someone to come back who never did.

Then snow. Always snow.
He was older, shivering, trying to smile through it because that was what people liked — smiles. Smiles kept them from asking questions.

A shape appeared through the drift — horns like branches, eyes like ember-light.
He should have been afraid, but instead there was warmth.
The first warmth he could remember that didn’t want something in return.

---

Krampus dozed rarely. When he did, it was in the chair beside the bed, one heavy arm draped protectively across the edge, as though he could ward off nightmares by sheer presence.
Once, during the long second month, Jack’s hand twitched against the blanket. Krampus straightened instantly.

The boy’s lips moved. The word was faint, half a breath, but it reached him.

“…Dad…”

The old creature froze. For centuries he had been called many things — monster, warden, spirit, devil. Never that.

He leaned closer, claws curling inward so they wouldn’t frighten. “I’m here,” he rumbled, voice rough as stone. “Rest now.”

Jack’s hand stilled, fingers brushing his wrist as if to anchor himself. The faintest smile ghosted across his face, and he drifted back into sleep.

Krampus sat motionless for a long time after. Outside, the aurora flickered green across the peaks. Inside, the fire guttered low. He looked at the boy — no, the child under his care — and felt something old and new at once.

Perhaps this was what it meant to protect, not by command or fear, but by belonging.

---

Days passed again. When Nick next arrived, Krampus’s tone had changed.

“He spoke,” he said quietly. “Only one word.”

Nick understood without asking which word it was. He placed a hand on the old creature’s arm and smiled. “Then he’s coming back to you.”

Krampus didn’t answer. He only turned back toward the bed, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of Jack’s chest.

For the first time since the storm, hope felt real — fragile, glowing like the last ember of a long winter fire.

Chapter Text

The mountain winter held its breath.
Weeks had stretched into months since the night Krampus brought the boy back from Gryla’s lair. The world outside the lodge had changed — snow deeper, winds quieter — but inside, time stood still.

Jack had not stirred.

Krampus’s injuries had healed poorly; great scars marked his side where frost and fury had bitten deep. He ignored them. His concern was the pale boy who lay unmoving beneath thick quilts, the faint fog of his breath the only sign that he lingered still among the living.

When Nick arrived one morning, the cold followed him in — and with it, another presence.

A man stood behind him, young and uncertain, eyes shadowed by travel. His coat was thick with frost, his hands still trembling from the climb. But there was something unyielding in his gaze.

“Krampus,” Nick began gently. “This is Callum Drift. He asked to come.”

Krampus’s eyes glowed faintly in the dim light. “The boy needs rest, not strangers.”

Callum stepped forward, steady despite the weight of that gaze. “Then let me help him rest.”

---

For days, Krampus said little. He worked in silence, wary of the man who followed him through the lodge like a ghost.
Callum split wood, fetched water, mended what needed mending. He asked for nothing.

At night, when the wind howled and Krampus’s strength faltered, Callum sat by the fire, speaking softly to the boy who could not answer. His voice filled the silence like a promise.

“You’re safe now,” he would murmur, brushing frost from the blanket’s edge. “I’ll stay as long as it takes.”

Krampus heard those words from the shadows, saying nothing. Each time, something in his chest — something he had not named in centuries — eased a little.

---

Weeks turned again. The boy’s color returned, faint but sure. Krampus, still protective, hovered close each time Callum approached, claws half-bared though he never used them.

One night, Callum rose quietly to change the water basin. His hands were careful, reverent, as though touching something sacred.
“I’ve seen soldiers come back from less,” he whispered, to no one in particular. “He’ll fight his way through. He always does.”

Krampus, watching from the doorway, felt the words like warmth through stone.

“You know him,” he said, voice low.

Callum nodded without turning. “Not as I want to. But I will.”
Then he finally looked up. “You’ve done everything to keep him safe. Let me do the same.”

For a long time, the fire popped and hissed between them. Finally, Krampus stepped forward, his shadow falling over both man and boy.

“If you break what I’ve guarded,” he said, “the mountains themselves will remember it.”

Callum met his gaze. “Then let them. I’ll keep him safe — from the world, from himself, from anything that dares to take him again.”

Something ancient in Krampus recognized truth when it was spoken. He gave a single nod — small, but enough.

Nick, standing quietly near the hearth, smiled into his beard. “So that’s settled, then. Took you long enough.”

Krampus shot him a look, but there was no real anger behind it. The firelight caught the faintest curve of something that might have been peace.

---

That night, when Krampus finally allowed himself a few hours of sleep, Callum kept the vigil alone. Snow whispered against the windows, and the lodge was warm with the smell of pine and smoke.

He sat beside Jack’s bed and took his hand — the same hand Krampus had guarded so fiercely.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” he said softly. “But you’re not alone. Not now. You’ve got all of us — Nick, Krampus… me.”

He hesitated, voice barely more than breath. “I’ll be right here when you wake up. That’s a promise.”

From the shadows of the loft above, Krampus stirred but did not rise. His old eyes softened, glowing faintly in the firelight. For the first time in a long age, he let someone else keep watch.

Outside, the storm faded into stillness — a rare, fragile calm that felt like trust.

Chapter Text

The storms ended one by one until only a slow, steady fall of snow remained.
Krampus sat by the bed in silence. The logs in the hearth had burned low, and the shadows danced long across the walls.
Jack’s breathing was still there, faint and even — but no longer enough.

For the first time, the ancient creature felt something close to fear.
He had outwaited centuries of winter, yet the thought of losing this single fragile life made the nights endless.

He tried everything he knew — old healing words, the warmth of his own hand pressed to Jack’s heart, stories whispered through the hours.
Nothing changed.

When dawn came pale over the peaks, Krampus leaned close and spoke in a voice that was almost human.
“You’ve fought enough, boy. It’s time to come back now.”
No answer.

He bowed his head, claws curling uselessly against the blanket.
“Jack… my son.”
The word felt strange on his tongue — heavy, true.
And then the faintest sound came back to him: a breath caught, a heartbeat stumbling toward wakefulness.

Krampus looked up. The boy’s lashes fluttered.
“Jack,” he whispered again, and this time the eyes opened — pale and confused, but alive.

---

At first there was only silence. Jack’s gaze darted around the unfamiliar room, wide with panic. When Callum stepped forward instinctively, the boy flinched and pressed against Krampus’s side.

“It’s all right,” Krampus murmured, steadying him with one huge hand. “He’s a friend.”
Jack shook his head, trembling. He didn’t remember the man or the storm; only the endless dark and the voice that had called him home.

For days after, Krampus rarely left his side. He helped him drink, helped him walk a few steps, told him the names of the winds again as if teaching a child. When Callum entered the room, he always asked first, “May I?” And Krampus would nod or not, depending on how the boy’s hands shook that morning.

Bit by bit, Jack began to listen. Callum’s voice was gentle, filled with quiet stories of places south of the mountains. He never pressed, never asked for what Jack could not give.
Krampus watched the two of them — the careful distance between them shrinking like snow under sun — and understood what was growing.

---

Spring touched the edges of the world before it reached the mountains. One evening, the three of them sat by the open door, air smelling faintly of thawing pine.

Krampus stood, joints creaking, and looked to Callum.
“You have proven yourself,” he said. “You came when there was nothing to hope for. You stayed when I would have sent you away. The boy is yours to guard now, as he was mine to save.”

Callum rose, startled. “Sir—”
But Krampus raised a hand. “You need no permission to care for him. Still, you have my blessing.”

The old creature turned toward the mountains, giving them the privacy of his silence.

Callum knelt beside Jack’s chair. “You’ve had everyone fighting for you,” he said softly. “But I’ll keep fighting with you — if you’ll have me.”

Jack looked down at their joined hands, then across the room to where Krampus stood in the doorway, the aurora flickering behind him like a benediction.
He nodded once, a small, unsteady smile forming. “You already do.”

---

That night the lodge was quiet again, but different. The cold had lost its edge. Krampus watched the two younger men speak in hushed tones by the fire, and for the first time in long memory, he felt no need to guard the door.

Outside, the snow melted in thin silver streams. Inside, warmth spread — not just from flame, but from hearts that had chosen, at last, to stay.

Chapter Text

The lodge had changed since the long winter.
Where once the air carried the cold scent of pine and ash, it now held laughter — soft, hesitant, but real.

Jack sat by the fire, wrapped in one of Krampus’s enormous cloaks, his hair still a little too pale and his cheeks too thin.
Callum sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, carving something out of wood. Every so often, he’d glance up, and Jack would roll his eyes but smile anyway.

Nick had stopped by that morning, boots caked in snow, bringing a tin of biscuits and the noise of the outside world.
He’d scolded Krampus for forgetting to rest, teased Callum about “playing house,” and ruffled Jack’s hair before settling down to tell another impossible story.

By the time evening came, the hearth was glowing and the world beyond the window had gone soft and white again.

---

Krampus stood at the table, sorting through maps that hadn’t been touched in months.
Jack’s voice came, small and uncertain.

“Dad?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said it — but it still made Krampus stop.

The boy flushed, looking down at his hands. “Sorry. It just—slipped.”

Krampus turned, one great hand resting gently on Jack’s shoulder.
“Don’t apologize for what’s true.”
The smile that followed was brief but bright, and Jack relaxed, leaning into the contact.

From then on, he said it more easily.
“Dad, did you see where Callum left my sketchbook?”
“Dad, Nick says I should try baking.”
“Dad—goodnight.”

The word settled into the air like something that had always belonged there.

---

Nick came by often after that, bringing supplies, gossip, and his irrepressible grin.
He’d lounge near the fire, trading remarks with Krampus in the easy rhythm of long friendship.
Sometimes Jack would fall asleep mid-conversation, his head on Callum’s shoulder.
Krampus would glance over, and Nick would just nod, a quiet kind of peace passing between them.

“Didn’t think we’d ever see him laugh again,” Nick said once, low enough that only Krampus heard.

Krampus grunted softly, but there was no edge to it. “Didn’t think I’d ever be anyone’s father.”

Nick’s smile warmed. “World changes in strange ways, old friend.”

---

As months passed, the snow began to melt faster.
Jack’s strength returned; Callum’s laughter became a fixture; Nick’s visits turned from duty to habit.
And Krampus — the keeper of old winters — found that the sound of their voices had become part of his quiet world.

Sometimes, on still nights, he would look around the fire and see everything he never thought he’d have —
a son, a friend, and the faint, certain promise of spring.