Chapter Text
Jack was idly skating on his pond, trailing his staff along beside him to make frost patterns on the ice, when he heard the sound of North's sleigh high up above. Manny was bright and full, resting at his peak in the dark sky, and when Jack looked up he saw the sleigh crossing in front of him. Jack's heart leapt for a moment, before settling back to its slow rhythm in his chest. North wasn't going to be visiting him, not this close to Christmas.
He firmly squashed the well of loneliness opening up in his gut and turned, skating backwards as he thickened the ice behind him. Jamie's youngest might still be able to see him and want to go ice skating this year. Maybe she'd bring a bunch of new kids from town and they'd be able to convince at least some of them that he was real. It was getting harder to find new believers these days.
As he was slowing to turn and skate across the center of the pond — the last thing he wanted was a repeat of the winter 20 years ago when it was only the kid's desperate belief in him that let him pull her out of the hole in the center of the pond — he was struck by how quiet it was suddenly. Like someone had come through and scared all the night animals away.
He doubted it, though. It was late at night (or early in the morning) on the 20th and all the good little boys and girls were asleep in their beds. North was preparing for his holiday, the other Guardians were doing their work — except for Bunny, who knew what he did at this time of year — and Jack was alone.
He paused and pressed at the ache in his chest.
When he was made a Guardian, he honestly thought that feeling was going to disappear. That he would have his new family and everything would be great. He hadn't realized that the only reason why they were all together was because North had called them to him. That while they were all friends, they didn't hang out all the time. And that when they did…
It wasn't that he wasn't welcome. He was always welcome. It was just… he got it, he really did; it was hard to remember that he wasn't the same flighty spirit they thought he was for centuries before Manny appointed him as a Guardian. It was hard to look past the way he had made their lives difficult before, once he knew they existed, so desperate for attention that he didn't care that it was all negative.
He got it, he did. And it was just easier to stay out of their way, to go back to how it always was. Sure, if they specifically invited him he'd go hang out, but that wasn't exactly a thing that happened a lot.
"Jack!"
The sudden booming voice from behind him had Jack jumping half a foot in the air and landing bad, ending with him sliding across the ice on his ass. A lone crow cawed and flew away from the whole mess.
"Ah, Jack, I didn't mean to frighten you," North said, striding out across the ice and offering Jack a hand up.
Jack took it and pulled himself to his feet, then quickly stepped back before North could crack his ribs with a hug. The heat from that brief touch had him longing to step forward and let himself be wrapped in a bear hug — the only type of hug North knew how to give — but he couldn't. It was like eating a morsel of food after a long period of hunger. It wouldn't do anything but make the hunger worse.
"What's up?" he asked, sending frost spiralling out from where his staff was touching the ice out of habit more than anything.
"Surely you are feeling it," North said, looking around the empty pond. "The children, they are starting to forget."
Jack flinched away from his words. It had been harder for him to get new believers lately, but he'd assumed that was just his lot in life. He'd never have a big holiday to attach himself to, or something as physical and momentous as losing a tooth. He'd assumed it wouldn't be many years — maybe fifty, maybe a hundred, but not many — until he lost his last believer and was truly alone again. It wasn't something he liked to think about a lot.
It had never occurred to him that the same thing might be happening to the other Guardians. If it was, if they were losing believers or not gaining new ones…
"Is this Pitch?" he asked, gripping his staff tightly and looking around like Pitch would just appear out of the trees.
"That is what we are thinking," North said, nodding. "Come, we must go see what evil plans he is making from his lair."
"Are we sure he's even still there?" Jack asked, scrambling to catch up to North as he strode away. Luckily the half foot of snow that he had to wade through once off the pond slowed him down, and Jack, nimble on top of the snow and not leaving a footprint behind, was able to fall into an easy pace beside him.
"No, that is a thing we also will be checking," North said. "But the enchantments keeping him contained should still be strong."
As they crossed through the thin stretch of woods and into a clearing, North's sleigh came into view, with Bunny lounging across the back, his feet up. Sandy was floating nearby and Toothiana hovering up front, some of her fairies scattered around her.
"Jack!" Tooth cried when she saw him, and flitted up in a burst of fluttering greens and blues to hug him before he could subtly move back.
He couldn't help the grin that spread across his face, or the surprised laugh, as he hugged her back. "Hey Tooth. Lookin' good ladies," he said to the fairies.
"We've missed you, Jack," Tooth said, letting go and moving back to hover in front of him.
"Uh, yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. There was no way he could say that he didn't feel welcome, that he knew he was only fun in small doses and whenever he was visiting he knew he inevitably overstayed his welcome. "I've been busy, making sure everyone's having fun around the world."
"I knew you would be good Guardian," North said from behind him, clapping him on the back and making him stumble forward a few paces as Tooth zipped out of the way.
"Bunny," Jack said cautiously when he regained his balance. He and Bunny would never be real friends, but they had reached a truce over the years. Jack didn't fuck with Easter as much, and Bunny grudgingly tolerated Jack's presence. It wasn't what Jack had imagined when he accepted the Guardianship, but he would take it.
"Jack," Bunny said, just as cautious, and stood up. He hopped out of the sleigh, landing in the snow with a muffled thump and shivering as his feet made contact with the ground. "Bloody winter," he grumbled.
Jack sent a flurry of snow and wind his way, just because. If he wasn't allowed to be angry about Easter and the start of Spring in front of Bunny, Bunny wasn't allowed to complain about winter in front of him, either.
Bunny shot a glare his way, but North was already between them. "Now, now, we are guardians of children, not acting as children."
Jack couldn't resist sending a smirk around North's back to Bunny, but Bunny wasn't even paying attention to him, having turned to look in the direction of Pitch's lair.
"Sorry mate," Bunny said, and Jack wasn't sure if he was talking to him or to North. "We're all on edge."
"This is true," North said. "But there is no use dallying." He patted his swords on the hilts. "We shall go and crush the Nightmare King back into the ground where he belongs."
Pitch's lair wasn't far from Jack's pond, just over the stream that fed it and through the woods to the clearing that used to house a crumbling bed and a deep, dark hole. Now, there was nothing to make the place where the entrance to Pitch's lair had been than a circle where nothing would grow. The children called it a fairy ring. They didn't know how close they were.
The ground was still smooth and unbroken, and Jack looked around the clearing for another entrance. There wasn't any.
"How are we getting in?" he asked, fingering his staff nervously. He could feel the anxiety creeping up the base of his spine. The last time he'd seen Pitch, he'd broken his staff, and it was only luck and gut instinct that let Jack put it back together. As the staff snapped, it had felt like Pitch had broken an essential part of Jack, like a rib or a spine. He didn't want to experience that again.
North pulled two snow globes out of a pocket in his coat, handing one to Bunny and holding the other out for Jack to inspect. The main cavern of Pitch's lair had been burned into his memory, the tarnished cages, the endless stairs, the shadows everywhere. Inside the globe was a perfect replica. He suppressed a shiver and turned to Bunny and Sandy, who were standing apart from him, North, and Tooth.
"Aren't you coming with us?" he asked.
"Nah," Bunny said. "We're the backup when it all goes wrong."
North chuckled. "But it might go right, Bunny, do not be such a pessimist."
He grinned and shook up the globe, a light dusting of white swirling and glittering around the crags and dark spaces of the lair. He threw it in front of them, and a portal opened. Jack tightened his grip on his staff, glanced back at Bunny and Sandy, and followed North and Tooth into the darkness.