Chapter Text
It had been several years since the Guardians had defeated Pitch. Several years in which Jack’s excuse that he needed to protect his believers in case Pitch attacked saved him from attending the annual New Year's Eve party. It was hosted by the Dagda every year on a remote island to the north of Scotland, shrouded from mortal eyes; accordingly, it was the party to attend each year. This year, however, Jack's usual excuse fell on deaf ears, given that they hadn't seen hide nor hair of Pitch, let alone any nightmares or black sand, since that fateful day.
The issue was compounded by the fact that the other Guardians failed to notice, that despite his love of children and fun times, how antisocial Jack really was. Or, to be more accurate, how few spirits he actually knew that cared to interact with him. Being a winter spirit, he'd quickly learned in his early years that most spirits not of winter took an immediate dislike to him because of that one simple fact and refused to interact with him. As for the other winter spirits, Jack had no desire to know them. At all.
Given his lack of an excuse this year, Jack had been coerced into attending. And immediately been ignored by nearly every spirit present. Big surprise.
A couple of the other winter spirits had at least acknowledged his presence, but had not sought out his company where he sat on a small boulder on the periphery of the gathering, bored and lonely. He was at least thankful for that small mercy.
He occasionally caught sight of the other Guardians scattered about the crowd. Tooth flit about the crowd, visiting with, it seemed, everyone. North wasn't terribly hard to find either; he was off to one side drinking copious amounts of alcohol with several other Russian spirits and being quite loud about it. Sandy's dream sand displays were impossible to miss. Sandy occasionally caught his eye, winked, and gestured towards a certain lagomorph.
Jack would blush and look away, but Sandy was right; he only had eyes for Bunnymund.
If his perch on the outskirts of the party was good for anything, it was as an excellent vantage point to watch his favorite leporid socialize with the other spirits. Given that Bunny was at least a head taller than the majority of the spirits in attendance, it was an easy task to keep track of him.
Jack smiled slightly as he watched Bunny laugh at something a kitsune had said. How he wished that he could make the Pooka laugh like that. Jack blushed and turned his head away to gaze out to sea when Bunny caught his eye.
No one – well, no one but Sandy – knew that he had fallen in love with the Easter Bunny and his easygoing attitude, the care with which he took in his everyday life, and how he handled children now that he’d spent more time with Sophie; even the industrious gruffness he expressed around his holiday had become endearing rather than abrasive.
He had confessed his feelings to Sandy earlier in the day, asking for advice on how to approach him, seeing as how Sandy had known Bunny the longest. Well, Moon had probably known Bunny longer, but Jack neither knew him well nor cared to, given what he had had to endure before being raised to Guardianship.
He might have been holding a small grudge. Just a little one.
Sandy's pictographic advice had basically been to be himself. Just wait for the right moment. Easier said than done, given their history. Despite Jack's best efforts, he still didn't quite feel like he'd completely overcome their earlier animosity, although Bunny did seem to at least consider him a friend now. He certainly called him ‘mate’ more often than anything else, except when trying to grab his wandering attention. Granted, that last was often enough to drive the Pooka mental at times, or so it seemed.
Jack wanting to be more than friends would either make or break their relationship, he was certain. He desperately hoped that it would be the former and not the latter. Now if only he could work up the courage to –
“Ow ya goin’, Frostbite?”
Jack jumped in surprise, bolting upwards several feet into the air as the subject of his meandering thoughts appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The small cup of non-spiked punch he’d been nursing for the last hour went flying out to sea. Jack sheepishly settled back down onto the boulder, pointedly ignoring Bunny's quiet chuckle as he cursed inwardly at his inattention.
“Startled you, did I mate?”
“No,” Jack denied automatically, tone petulant, as he willed himself not to blush, with limited success.
Damn his eternal teenage hormones to hell.
“You're kind of cute when you blush, did you know that? What color is that, violet?” Bunny observed, squinting at Jack in the gloom, his grin widening when Jack's blush immediately darkened. “Definitely violet.”
Jack nodded mutely, overwhelmed and a bit embarrassed.
He thinks you're cute, part of Jack's mind screamed at him. Do it! Confess!
Jack screwed up his courage and opened his mouth –
“What are you doing drinking with the flies, anyway? This is a party! While I'm usually not much of one for them myself, a party is a party, especially this one, mate. You should be mingling!”
Jack frowned. “Bunny, I don't exactly know anyone here except you and the other Guardians. And they aren't interested in me, so –”
“That’s a croc, ya galah,” Bunny interjected. “You're pleasant company when you're not pranking me every time I turn around. In fact, you're the Guardian of Fun! Of Joy! Of course they'd want to talk to you, mate. Now go on, have a chinwag or two. She’ll be apples. Just be careful of North, he’s already full as a goog!”
Jack shook his head, smiling at Bunny despite himself. “You’re just lucky I’ve been making an effort to learn strine, or I’d have no idea what you just said.”
Bunny smirked before giving him an expectant look. Jack threw up his hands.
“Fine, fine! I’ll go, if it’ll make you happy! I promise you, it’s going to be a disaster!”
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Aster had to admit, when Jack was right, boy, was he right. Complete and total disaster. Kind of funny to watch the train wreck in progress though. Aster was following along discreetly, using his exceptional hearing to keep track of Jack when he lost sight of him, which was most of the time. Jack was at least a head shorter than everyone else.
Jack had started by trying to interact with several Japanese kami. His lack of success was only matched by the humorous expressions on their faces. Aster had had to stop talking to the nymph he had been speaking to - who was spending all her time flirting, not that Aster cared to return the favor - and focus on not laughing out loud while he followed Jack's movement with his eyes and ears. The nymph had huffed and wandered off.
Good. She wasn't his type anyway, not that anyone needed to know that. Some spirits could be a bit – uptight, about those who preferred the same gender. Shapeshifter he may be, he liked being male.
Jack next moved on to a group of Fox spirits. Aster figured that would work out better, them being fellow tricksters and all, so they should – or, not.
That was fast. What'd he do that was so offensive?
Jack then got accosted by a couple of winter spirits, who seemed to be rather animated about welcoming him into the fold. Aster missed the way Jack stiffened as he turned to gaze elsewhere, recognizing someone’s laugh.
They should have something to talk about! Oh, look, there's Raven, I should -
CRASH!
“Watch where you're going!” a squeaky voice exclaimed.
I take my attention away from him for two seconds....
Aster made his way over in time to see Jack righting himself from apparently tripping over the Groundhog, who was just dusting himself off from a scattering of frost and ice crystals. In addition, it seemed that Jack had managed to overturn a table near the dance floor, spilling the refreshments everywhere. Frost and ice covered everything in a five foot radius around him. He must have let loose with it in his panic.
Then Aster noticed the punch-drenched hoodie and pinkish-hued hair, tiny pink ice crystals scattered throughout. Aster couldn't help himself, he laughed; ‘pink’ Jack was just too adorably funny and tripping over the Groundhog? Priceless!
The laughter rippled outward; in short order, everyone within earshot was laughing over the incident. Jack flushed a dark violet and, with one last embarrassed glance at Aster, shot up into the air with a cold blast of wind, startling many of the bystanders.
“Good riddance,” the annoyingly little rodent sneered before going on to say several nasty things about Jack.
Oh, now that is just not on.
Aster growled and marched over.
“What do you want, rabbit?” the irritating creature sneered, before yelping as Aster grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Watch it!”
Aster growled, “You’d best stop talking like that about Jack, you blighter, or I'll job ya!”
“‘Job?’ What does that even mean, ‘job?’ Does it have something to do with that pansy ass winter sprite you call a Guardian? He doesn't even have a holiday!”
Aster snarled, “Ya asked for it,” and then proceeded to show the Groundhog the error of his ways.
With his fist.
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“Oi! Frostbite!”
Jack hid a wince and turned around, false smile firmly in place. The dumb kangaroo was wading through the throngs of Yetis at the Workshop.
It had been several days since the disastrous party. Jack had been hiding out at the Workshop, specifically avoiding the individual who had finally tracked him down. Jack was still angry at Bunny for laughing at him when he had been so terribly mortified and he wasn't ready to forgive him just yet.
But… maybe he came to apologize? Ha, when elves fly!
“What do you want, Cottontail?” he asked, a slight edge in his voice. Maybe Bunny wouldn't notice.
“What's with the snarky tone?”
Or not.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Jack rejoined, hotter than he'd intended as the smile fell from his face.
A sly look crossed Bunny's face before he questioned, tone light and teasing, “Is our clumsy little pink-haired Guardian trying to have a blue with little ol' me?”
Jack froze. “What?”
Have I not gotten all of the pink out yet?
Bunny grinned and mimed tripping over a nearby elf.
Jack paled, anger extinguished as the mortification came back with a vengeance. He spun on the spot and jumped out a window. He flew off without a backwards glance, seeking a new hiding spot to wallow in his pain alone.
A few days later, Jack was visiting Toothiana when Bunny appeared to ask her about a particular flower he’d been looking for and if any of her girls had seen one. He got sidetracked by Jack’s presence, however.
“Hey there Frostbite. Speaking of flowers, I brought one special for you.”
Jack gazed cautiously at the Pooka, nodding slowly for him to go ahead. Bunny, with a flourish, presented a bright pink flower that sparkled in the light as if covered with ice crystals. It was actually quite beautiful, but –
“Bunny, what is that and why are you giving it to me?” Jack asked, tone wary.
Bunny smirked.
Bad sign.
“Well, y’see Frostbite, this here is a Delosperma cooperi, a type of ice flower that is quite hardy and can stand really cold temperatures. When I saw it yesterday in my garden, I immediately thought of you and your pink hair from the other night.”
Jack blushed a dark violet in embarrassment and, making half-muttered excuses, threw himself out the nearest window. He vaguely registered Bunny’s laugh as he ran.
And this was only to be the beginning.
Jack had developed a habit of visiting the Warren often, sometimes daily, especially during his off-seasonal periods. Now, though, he began to visit less and less, because every time - every single damn time - he visited, Bunny inevitably brought up that embarrassing incident. Not always at first, which brought a false sense of hope to the sprite each and every time, but he always did.
Sometimes he would reference the ‘clumsiness,’ while others he’d poke fun at Jack about the pink-stained hair. When that finally wound down in mid-February, Jack thought he was in the clear.
He was wrong.
Jack pranked. It was part and parcel with Joy being his Center. Pranks were funny. Every now and again, a prank failed; the timing was off, or the target didn’t do what Jack anticipated, or, occasionally, the prank backfired on him quite directly. Somehow, Bunny was just there every time a prank backfired on him – and then teased him mercilessly for weeks afterwards after laughing over the incident.
After all of that, Bunny then began nitpicking every little thing that Jack did wrong. Everything. It was almost enough to drive Jack insane.
Jack stopped visiting the Warren mid-March. Bunny never noticed; he was too busy preparing for Easter.
Jack pretended that it didn’t hurt.
Jack’s enjoyment of life waned slowly as time progressed and Bunny, time and again, laughed and teased him. His Joy in his work was slowly sputtering to a cold, dead stop. He’d tried, at Sandy’s urging, to talk to Bunny about the situation, but those ‘talks’ turned into arguments and Jack always ran away.
He pretended that the fact the being he loved with all his heart treating him so terribly didn’t hurt either.
Because it was easier to pretend than to face the reality of his dreams crumbling around him.
So he pretended it didn’t hurt.
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Sandy knew better.
As a result of his well-known bouts of narcolepsy, nearly every spirit he’d ever encountered underestimated just how observant he could be when he was awake. After all, you had to focus on an individual to pick out their dreams and desires. It was child’s play to figure out anything else and, as he was mute, body language was everything. He actually could read body language in his sleep.
Don’t ask how. It’s… complicated.
He watched the whole sordid affair between Jack and Bunny with a heavy heart. He’d asked Jack, in his way, a month after the party, if Jack wanted him to talk to Bunny, explain what was wrong. Jack had laughed that thin reedy laugh of his, the one that he thought Sandy didn’t know hid his pain behind a façade of joy and a carefree attitude, and told him that he was ‘fine.’
Sandy had once heard a human say that ‘fine’ stood for ‘fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional,’ which he found rather fitting to this situation and said as much, with actual sand-formed words for emphasis. Jack had laughed again and waved off his concern, flying off as if it didn’t matter.
Jack was wrong about that too, just as he was wrong in thinking that no one saw his pain, or cared.
Sandy may have been the only one, but he saw. He cared. And what he saw both saddened and infuriated him. For a scholar and a Guardian, Bunnymund could be terribly blind at times. Especially when it came to Jack Frost.
What Bunny didn’t see was that Jack ran away from each and every encounter crying.
What Bunny didn’t see was that Jack stopped visiting the Warren and only interacted with him, of necessity, during the bi-weekly Guardian meetings.
What Bunny didn’t see was just how deeply Jack loved him and how personal a betrayal the merciless and relentless teasing truly was.
What Bunny didn’t see was that he was slowly, inevitably, crushing Jack’s very Center. His Joy.
What Bunny didn’t see was how he was slowly losing Jack.
Sandy saw. Sandy cared.
And Sandy had waited long enough, out of respect for Jack’s wishes.
But that time had passed.
It was time to act.
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It was late May before Aster realized something was odd. He’d not been harassed, pranked, poked, tackled, or taunted in quite some time. In fact, now that he thought about it, since before Easter.
While he didn’t always enjoy the incidents, he had started to grow fond of the all the attention Jack had been paying him. It was kind of flattering, in a way; he had realized the year before that Jack spent more time with him than all the other Guardians combined. The decided lack of Jack’s presence was quite strange.
I’m going to have to ask Frostbite about that at the meeting, Aster decided as he made his way to the Workshop.
He may grumble about it regularly, but he understood why they held the meetings at the Workshop. North needed to oversee his Yeti constantly and Jack was most comfortable in the snow and ice. Tooth was just a short flight over the top of the world away and Sandy just didn’t care one way or the other. Still, it’d be nice to not have to wander through the freezing weather every other week.
Maybe I should try again at convincing North to hold the meetings at the Warren or the Tooth Palace some of the time….
Arriving outside the Workshop in his usual spot and swearing about the cold once more –
I really need to get that drongo to make me an entrance point inside the ruddy place.
– he made his way inside and up to the platform that overlooked the Globe, the one the Moon Crystal was stored beneath. Everyone but Jack was already there, per the usual run of things.
Or, not.
Sandy was missing too.
That’s strange, I wonder – oh!
Sandy and Jack were on the far side of the chamber. Aster couldn’t make out what they were saying over the din of the Workshop’s production floors, but he could see indistinct shapes flitting around Sandy. Jack was gesticulating wildly. It looked like they were arguing about something.
That was odd. Those two usually got on like peas in a pod.
Jack turned away from Sandy and floated across the chamber to land on the platform. He was obviously distressed, the lines around his mouth and eyes tight with tension. His shoulders were stiff and – were those bags under his eyes?
Kid’s obviously not been taking care of himself. I wonder what’s wrong?
When Jack turned and noticed he was standing there gazing at him, he flinched. Oh, he tried to cover it with another vague gesture, but it was most definitely a flinch. Jack all but ran passed him without a word.
What the…?
When Sandy floated over on a magic carpet made of sand, Aster quirked an eyebrow at him inquiringly. Sandy scowled at Aster and gestured for him to go into the side room, with an admonishment in bright golden letters ‘Be Nice!’ Sandy then floated over to his usual spot and settled in, grabbing a glass of eggnog, as always. Aster shook his head at their strange behavior and grabbed the piece of furniture North had designed just for him. It looked like a cross between a rocking chair and a bar stool, but it was surprisingly comfortable.
The meeting was a short one today. It seemed that no time at all had passed as North, Tooth, Aster, and Sandy had related their information before it was Jack’s turn. Being that it was late spring, Aster expected Jack to have little to report, given that not many places needed snow at this time – too early for many in the Southern Hemisphere, too late for much of the Northern Hemisphere.
“So, Jack, what news of your work?” North prompted genially.
Jack shrugged noncommittally. Sandy tinkled at him, giving him a ‘go ahead’ gesture. Jack rolled his eyes and sighed.
Odd behavior indeed.
“Boring stuff. Snowed over several mountain ranges as a favor for Mother Nature. Had a snowball fight with a few Inuit children. Nothing much.”
Aster frowned. This was most unlike Jack, to be so quiet and reserved.
“What’s with the attitude, Frostbite? ‘Hog got your tongue?” Aster queried, reflexively tossing in a mild tease.
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say.
Jack flinched and his expression fell, eyes going suspiciously iridescent.
“I – nothing,” he murmured, before gesturing vaguely at the nearby window. “I’m just – bye.”
And he flew off without another word, ignoring the protests of North and Tooth. Aster sat staring at the spot Jack had just vacated. Had the sprite been about to cry?
Aster moved to stand, but instead caught a face full of – of sand? – and fell over, the world going black.