Chapter Text
“What is this about again, Frostbite?” Bunny hopped off the Pole’s elevator, weaving between toys, yetis, and elves doing God knows what, following his giggling friend down the hall.
“It’s a surprise!” Jack gushed, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Bunny noticed it was a prominent habit of his- for a moment he embarrassingly compared him to a rabbit.
They came to a stop by the stable. Slowly, its doors creaked open and North’s sleigh was pulled out from its bunker, reindeer grunting and clicking by. “Oh no,” Bunny already started pulling back, forming a tight grip on the Winter spirit’s arm and dragging him along with him. He knew exactly where this was going to lead to. He said in a hushed tone, “You can’t take North’s sleigh!”
“Yes I can! He made me his helper this Christmas! He also said I can use his sleigh whenever I want.” Jack’s face was filled with mischief as he pulled Bunny back to the blasted thing North considered a sleigh.
“Now why would that giant bloke allow you to help him and drive that?” Bunny narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t picture Jack patiently crafting toys, baking, or helping strap in the reindeer. He could however, picture the frosty trickster trying to feed a reindeer food, only later having to wrestle his staff back from the large animal’s mouth once it had taken hold. He tried to hide his smirk behind his hand.
“North said I was like the son he never had, and that my first Christmas as Guardian should be special,” Jack smirked, fluttering his eyes and holding his hand to his heart in a mock expression. Bunny rolled his eyes. North and his paternal pang with Jack, of course. Since Easter, North's ability to say no to the winter spirit had disappeared.
Jack’s mood suddenly switched. His head began to droop, bangs covering his eyes. “-and he knew it was my first time celebrating Christmas in general as a spirit so…”
Oops, that touchy subject. Poor bugger. “Crikey mate. I mean, don’t you already fly? Why go for this massive rickety thing that will end up in a ditch with us in it?” He prodded the sleigh’s rim and chuckled awkwardly at his own joke, then paused. “Have you even practiced with North on how to drive this?”
Jack’s face lit up, past worries gone. “Of course I have! In our practice runs I did great!”
*** One Week Prior ***
“Now Jack, this is to boost speed, so don’t keep pressing it or else you will have harder time slowing down or turning. This bar tells you about reindeer status. And make sure to check dial for-”
“Alright, I get it, I get it, when can we go?” Jack’s fingers were itching for the reins.
North had decided one unfortunate day to buckle down and teach Jack how to drive. After the many assignments the ice terror deemed useless; learning how to apply lacquer to the sleigh, trying to get the reindeer’s attention to strap them in, and being taught by Phil the Yeti the different signals of the light batons to direct the sleigh, finally, finally North said they were heading out.
North chuckled. “Last time at Tooth Palace you only steered, I am just making sure you understand-”
“I know all of this, I fly myself. It’s almost the same thing. Piece of cake.” Jack rolled his eyes, waving North off.
North took Jack’s staff, and tucked it away in the corner of his sleigh. He handed him the reins. “Fine, fine. Here, take these, and stand here,” North practically grabbed his mentee and placed him in the center of the sleigh himself. “I stand behind you, and watch, da?” North seated himself and gestured with his hands. “Now, whenever you are ready-”
With a crack from the reins the sleigh lurched forward, the yetis and elves diving out of the way as it left the hall. They were now speeding along, ramming into the walls at every turn. North, being the giant he was, had no problem anchoring himself when he flew his oversized sleigh around. With Jack, he had to try to balance himself and widen his stance. They were zooming through the ice caverns, scraps of sleet and ice shards falling off as the sleigh rammed into them. As they were nearing the wooden ramp, Jack could feel the wind slowly start picking him up. He dug his feet into some small grooves he found below and groaned. Maybe flying this was hard, especially if you were as light as a feather.
With a last bang against the wooden edge, they wobbled up, up, up, until they were higher than the turrets of North’s workshop. Jack breathed a sigh of victory.
“You are doing very good job! Now, why don’t we elevate risk?” North rubbed his hands together.
“What do you mean?” Sometimes Jack forgot North was a bit naughty too.
North rummaged through his coat until he found what he was looking for. He produced a globe from his pocket, and threw it ahead of their flying vessel. “We practice around city! More chaos there, so more harder level!” With a yelp from Jack, the two were sucked into the portal, North’s laugh ringing through.
They came through the other end in Russia (of course North picked this country), with the cossack still holding his belly out of mirth. Jack gave out a yell as a clock tower came out of nowhere, and yanked hard on the reins, sending them into a twisted spiral. If only there was a better way to control the reindeer, maybe with an icy solution…
“I could…” Jack stretched out his hand, forming a frosty path in the middle of the sky. The reindeer latched onto it, and soon the sleigh was half flying, half sliding under the new freshly made ice. Genius. They glided above the many buildings, the townspeople driving and walking down below, with children riding on their bikes and- oh wait that one kid just saw us, oops- past snow covered trees.
Just to humour North, Jack finished off his icy track with a corkscrew loop and a ramp at the end. He cracked the reins, urging the reindeer faster. North was still lost in his fun in the seat behind him, watching as they sped along and into the spiral.
As they were flying upside down through the twister, Jack mentioned over his shoulder, “You know, this is almost like what I did with Jaime that one time when he lost his tooth.” Except… hold on. How did that end again-
“CRAP-” With a jolt, the ramp at the end threw them high. All of a sudden, the sleigh dipped forward down, and into a snowbank in a nearby forest. Jack was thrown headfirst and buried deep under the pile, his staff spinning through the air as it came down, landing upright on top of the snow. North, (because what was the use of seatbelts), flew into the heap of cold and wet as well. Half of the reindeer were sprawled around the snow, the other half trying to detangle their antlers from nearby bushes they crashed onto. The sleigh had flipped perfectly upright, without a dent in sight, the irony of it all.
“Um, are you going to say that Bunny was right about the seatbelts?” Jack called out from under the snowpile.
***
Bunny raised a skeptical eyebrow and crossed his arms. North the Enabler. No, the instigator. Those practice flights must have been an utter mess. By the looks of it, Jack might get even worse with time because of North’s encouragements.
It wasn’t the fact that he hated the sleigh. Sure, it smelled funny because of the barn and could pass as the oldest relic on earth, but by the end of the Pitch scandal he was happily sitting in it as they left Burgess in victory.
It was the lack of survival instinct in Jack that made riding with him so scary. The frosty elf always dove head first into situations without thinking.
Sensing Bunny’s internal debate, Jack added, “We could… visit Sophie? She’ll be so happy seeing the sleigh.” He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a- oh strewth that’s one of North’s globes- for Bunny to see. Jack grinned, tossing the globe up and down. “C’mon Bun Bun, everyone loves the sleigh.”
Bunny sighed. Might as well get used to this craze.