Chapter Text
December 29th 100 years since Pitch’s defeat.
Christmas was a success this year, everything went off without a hitch. All presents were ready and delivered on time, there was not a single sign of a Night Mare this year, and the yetis got most of the workshop cleaned before North got back to the Pole. Now he was in the middle of preparations for the Guardians yearly Christmas celebration. Before Pitch was defeated they never spent much time together, after his defeat and Jack Frost joining them as a Guardian they decided to do celebrations where everyone got together at that Guardians’ home and would have a feast, talk, play games, watch movies etc. North’s Christmas celebration is obviously just after Christmas on December 29th, Jack’s is February 18th, Bunny’s April 30th, and Tooth and Sandy both wanted to share a day as they both get so busy and switch off who hosts each year in August.
Tonight's dinner is a traditional Russian feast consisting of Zakuski (an assortment of pickled smoked fish and meats, bread, caviar, and pickles), pears marinated in spiced cider vinegar and honey, Borscht, and for dessert Orange Hazelnut butter cream torte! Christmas goodies such as cookies, caramel popcorn, chocolate candies, and different flavors of candy canes have been set out for snacking throughout the evening as well. Jack had asked if they could watch his favorite Christmas movie Home Alone and North had agreed cheerfully. Bunny requested his favorite board game Catan and North gingerly agreed under the condition Bunny didn’t target Jack the whole game this time, Bunny had put his hands up with a chuckle and promised he wouldn’t. Everything was perfect and ready for the other guardians to arrive, but something was off. Something felt wrong, he could feel it – in his belly. North decided to brush it off assuming it was nerves for tonight's gathering or one of the elves had gotten into something that he would discover at a later time.
Jack was the first to arrive, flying through his bedroom window with a swirl of snowflakes around him. His window was always left cracked and food left in the kitchen fridge in case he ever wanted to stay at the pole, seeing as Jack didn’t have a house in his home town Burgess. North wanted him to always feel welcome and as if the Pole was his home as well especially after ignoring him for so long. There is also a room for Sandy but he rarely uses it.
Next came Tooth flittering through the front door still chattering about new lost teeth to her few fairies that came with her. She often left Baby Tooth in charge of headquarters during these celebrations but still took a couple fairies with her to get a few more things taken care of while everyone was showing up.
Sandy followed in right behind Tooth, in the front seat of a dreamsand train. He waved “hello” to Jack as he hopped off and the train disappeared into a glittering gold cloud. Sandy and Jack started learning sign language to communicate easier. Sandy has been picking it up much quicker than Jack so sometimes conversions sound a little silly.
“How is the winter going Jack? Seen any Night Mares lately?” Sandy signed
Jack thought for a second making note of the lack of Mares he’s had to scare off.
“Winters going good Sand, just gave Canada a fresh new blanket of snow” Jack said with a slight giggle “There really hasn’t been any Night Mares lately so thats good, it’s annoying trying to scare them off when I’m in the middle of a random snowball fight.” he rolled his eyes as he informed Sandy. Sandy was just about to reply when Jack suddenly lost his balance and fell into a hole in the floor.
“Wha the?” Bunny’s voice came from the hole. Bunny appeared out of his tunnel holding Jack.
“Watch where you make your tunnels Bunny!” Jack said as he jumped out of Bunny’s arms, giving him a quick side eye.
“Watch where ya standin Mate!” Bunny retorted back. He looks around and sees everyone at the Pole “Oy did ya give me the wrong time so ya could be here first?” he shouted at North
“You're just always late Bunny” North replied with a smirk. “Now, we eat!”
Everyone took their seats at the large wooden dining table, North sat at the head of the table with Bunny to his right and Jack sat to his left. Sandy took his seat next to Jack and Tooth got settled in next to Bunny. Several Yetis brought out each Guardians plate and they started digging in happily. Several conversations were all happening as the food was devoured, Jack and Sandy were signing to each other often stopping to laugh when Jack messed up. Tooth and Bunny were locked in a silly debate over which countries had the better views and North would pitch into the different convos with Jack occasionally saying the country looked better covered in snow. It was blissful chaos. As dinner was finished up, Jack and Bunny were locked in a silly argument over if they were going to watch the movie or play the board game next, Tooth tried to intervene several times with her words going unheard. Sandy settled the debate by threatening to hit them both with the dreamsand and choosing to play games first.
Bunny got Catan all set up while the others helped get dinner cleaned up and drinks and snacks set on the table. During the game North had to leave to go untangle some elves that got into the Christmas lights, Bunny and Jack were too distracted in sabotaging each other that in a twist of events Sandy won the game! Mini dreamsand fireworks exploded over his head in celebration. Tooth cleaned up the game as Jack got the movie room set up and Bunny and Sandy brought the last few uneaten cookies and handfuls of popcorn to the movie room. North's belly was still telling him something was wrong so he decided to take a quick walk around the workshop, maybe he left something out or forgot to do something. When he arrived at the movie room after looking everywhere nothing had seemed out of place, North settled on just blaming his imagination.
Of course Jack would love Home Alone, a movie full of pranks and chaos. Sandy was napping on the fluffy beanbag, North in his big recliner in the corner snoring away, Tooth was munching away on the last of the popcorn reminding herself to brush extra good tonight. Jack and Bunny were in a deep conversation on the probability of the traps in the movie actually working. They had just reached the part of the movie where Kevin was throwing the paint cans over the balcony to hit the burglars in the face when Bunny's ears perked up.
"Pause the Movie Jack." He said in a low cautious voice, and Jack grabbed his staff in defense and did as he asked. Ears twitching listening for the slightest creak, eyes darting all over watching for an ounce of movement, and nose wiggling from sniffing the air all over for a scent that shouldn't be there. He found it! Sulking in the corner of the room- he needed to alert everyone now!
"Eve'yone up! It's ----"