Save me from bad dreams if they should come
Raging into my heart
Keep us together, one family
Nothing can tear apart
'Bless this house' (Carol Anne's theme) by Jerry Goldsmith
One thing you can say about Jack Frost is he is stupidly impulsive. Bunnymund, in fact, loves saying the 'Stupid' part, and though his choice of words is not the best he wouldn't be failing the truth.
So when during one of his lazy days he discovers a lingering trail of black sand not far from the lake where he ended his human days and started his spirit ones he doesn't think twice and follows it on his own. Big mistake.
It's quite obvious that Pitch still thinks the end justifies the means (If anything, he's become more ruthless since his last defeat, as if his Nightmares had consumed what little he still retained of decency) when a trap, slightly akin to the bear-traps Jack's sometimes finds on his trips for the mountains closes on the boy's left ankle like a set of jaws. The pain is instant and unbearable and Jack collapses with a loud scream that frightens away the birds and echoes through the forest. He scrambles, and sits, trying to bite back the panic the sight of his wound causes. His leg is a mess; blood he didn't know he had oozes from the wound and stains the snow underneath. Threads of darkness, like a spider legs, grow from his ankle, trapped between the blades of black sand, to his foot and leg, like deadly poison spreading through his veins. Most likely, it is. Pitch's laughter resounds nearby him.
"My, my, the bedbugs do bite" he mocks, walking to him with studied slowness. Jack swings his staff, but the ice resulting hits nothingness as Pitch, sly as ever, slides to the opposite side, cackling at his struggle "Oh, I wouldn't move much if I were you. Those traps have the unpleasant habit of digging further into the flesh" as if on cue, the trap tightens its grip around Jack's leg and he barely holds back a scream, wondering for a feeble moment whether his foot has been cut off "I did warn you" Pitch continues, pacing in a circle around Jack.
"What do you want with me?!" the Winter Spirit demands, knowing Pitch is keen of mind games, so confronting him head-on is probably the best choice when facing him.
"I have yet to decide that" Pitch says, lazily, and seemingly truthful "What would be nice? I had a few ideas already…perhaps putting one of those?" he signals for the trap at the boy's ankle and it tightens yet again, making Jack squirm, his teeth gritted to hold back a cry "In each of your extremities? Oh, but cleaning up after that would be a pain…and I'd rather like to know what exactly happens to Jack Frost when you put him in a bonfire, doesn't that sound fun, Guardian? Though, I do happen to find bonfires too…luminous for my taste. How about locking you up in a room all for yourself inside my humble home for, let's say, the next three-hundred years? Can you imagine that? Three-hundred years talking to yourself, trapped where no one will ever see you again?"
He's trying to frighten him, Jack knows.
And succeeding, he realizes as a cold, heavy feeling settles on his stomach and he tries to swallow only to find his mouth completely dry.
"Just what would suit you?" Pitch continues, now bowing so his head is more leveled to Jack's and this gives the Guardian a chance to see him properly. There is something –or rather a lack of- in his features that makes Jack very wary and it takes him a while to discover it's the absence of any trace of humanity in his expression. His smile is a parody, like the smile of a skull "I simply have so many ideas! Why, what I'd do to your friends were they in your place…" his face lights up with an idea "In fact—"
Before Jack even knows what is going on, Pitch has already made a violent motion, pushing what seems to be a cloud of black sand right into his face. Coughing and blinking madly and gasping for air, his pain forgotten for the moment, he still barely hears the mocking voice.
"Why don't I show it to you?"
It sounds like someone's hitting a Thanksgiving turkey with a hammer, Jack thinks dazedly as somewhere in the darkness he is standing in the planks descend again and again over what used to be a couple of habile hands and red splatters through the air. His eyes travel from the tattooed forearms ('Naughty' is barely visible among the sea of red) to the broad shoulders and then the bearded face.
North, his eyes almost rolling back into his skull, his usually jolly-red face pale as death itself, is gagged by the black sand and for a moment there is silence, but then the sand disappears and the air shakes with the man's broken, pained, horrendous cry, tearing right through Jack's daze. He practically flies forward, thinking of North's hands; hands that could produce practically anything out of a block of ice, now turned to a red pulp of bone and flesh, while North's voice cuts through the air. Jack calls for him, frantic, nauseated, panicked, despaired, and for a moment North's unfocused eyes center on him, begging for help, begging for the pain to stop.
Then he is gone, but his cries continue as a duet to Jack's impotent roar, and the nerve-wrecking sound of something flying through the air behind the winter spirit's back adds in and makes him turn around to find Sandy being pierced by countless black arrows, his eyes set on him, wide with surprise and pain, and fright, and a silent plea for help and Jack has a moment to remember how they crinkle when he smiles before they get pierced too, blinded forever. Jack races to him, screaming his name and negatives and curses. Whether he can only shield him from more damage or there is actually something he can do, he doesn't know, and he doesn't find out because the arrows are faster and before he can even reach Sandy, he's been turned into an unrecognizable pin-cushion-like form to which the boy reaches out uselessly, still calling, before it is engulfed by darkness.
Jack throws back his head and screams, pulling his hair as the sound of North's cries and the arrows thunders through the darkness. His throat hurts, and his head throbs, and he crouches, eyes tightly shut, hands flying to his ears, trying to block the sounds to no avail, wishing he could just pass out and forget about everything but soon enough another well-known voice cries hoarsely, shortly, accompanied by the sound of something hitting the ground, and though deep, deep inside he doesn't want to see, he still raises his head to find Bunnymund being thrown to the ground by an invisible foe and getting to his feet to try to fight, again and again.
His nose is bleeding rivers, his right eye is a pulp of blood and swollen flesh, one of his ears is bent in a painful-looking angle and the other looks like it was all but pulled apart from his head. One of his paws is twisted and bent, and the next time he is thrown to the ground, he falls on it. Jack hears a loud 'Crack' and Bunnymund strangles put a cry, twisting on the ground. Jack has long since gotten to his feet to reach him, but once again what doesn't look like a long distance seems to stretch endlessly and he has to watch as the unknown and invisible foe continues to land blows and he hears as the cracking becomes more and more often and the screams louder and Jack calls for his friend, who sees him, for a second, and a spark of recognition lights his eye. Then a blow lands on his head and the eye freezes, losing its light. Jack feels his legs numb, and staggers and trips, and right before his face, the huge, hairy body lies limp, and the memory of the same body racing like a bolt across the roofs of China crosses his mind for a fraction of second before he realizes the blows are still landing on it, and the cracks have become louder. Jack screams like a wounded animal and hits his forehead furiously against the ground he can't see in the dark, hoping to knock himself out, but all that comes is pain and the sound of North's cries and the arrows and the cracks.
And then suddenly, silence.
He raises his head cautiously, to find himself alone in the dark again, and the thought is almost relieving as he gets to his feet. But of course, it doesn't last. However, this time the sound starts subtle, like a sheet of paper being softy grazed by a finger. He's afraid to turn around and see what's going on, the more because he knows what comes next, who's the only Guardian he hasn't seen yet. He almost wants to beg for it to stop, for mercy. Not for him but for them. For her
Black, skinny, bony fingers grab his arms, legs and neck out of nowhere. He struggles, but they're dragging him, forcing him to turn around. Another hand appears and grabs his chin, forcing him to raise his face, and then yet another rests its palm on his scalp and pulls his eyelids open. He's already growling 'No's and biting back the screams before he sees it.
At first sight, he thinks she's just being held by the same black hands that hold him, but then he sees the gag on her mouth and her wide, frightened eyes. The sound gets louder, except now it's a tearing sound, and he guesses what's going on before Tooth's gag vanishes and a shrill, anguished cry leaves her lips as one of the hands throws something –something luminescent, covered with blood- away. One of her wings. His voice joins her, as he calls for her and her eyes set on him, so full of fear and pain, before the sound repeats itself and her other wing is thrown away like garbage. Tooth screams again, swallows, gasps and whimpers and Jack allows himself to think it's over for a second before a hand grabs her face and another hovers menacingly close to her eyes.
Not her eyes, he thinks, as another hand lands on her scalp to hold her similarly to how he's being held, keeping her eyelids open. Anything but that. For a moment her pupils set on him the same way they did after she hugged him close, close enough so that he could smell the cinnamon and flowers on her before he made the Guardian Oath. And she utters his name with her broken voice, just once.
"I'm scared" she says.
Then the fingers move towards her eyes and—
He wakes up, screaming, just like he would do with any other nightmare. Sandy, quite occupied with bandaging his ankle, is the only one who doesn't belt back from him in surprise.
"Jack!" North says all but crouching on the ground next to him "You OK?"
Ya better be, ya bloody idiot, 'cause I'm gonna kick the shins outta ya!" Bunnymund intercepts, grabbing a still dazed Jack's collar and shaking him.
"E. Aster Bunnymund, release him this instant or so help me–!" Tooth calls indignantly from above North's shoulder. Sandy, produces a rolled newspaper out of his sand and hits Bunnymund on the nose as he would a dog and the bunny releases Jack with a huff before Tooth quite thoughtlessly pushes him away when she moves to kneel next to the now sitting boy, folding her wings neatly behind her back, placing a warm, safe and sound hand on his cheek "Thank goodness you're alright, Jack, you had us worried sick"
"That you did! Toothie keep saying 'Please, be safe' on our way here" North chuckles sort of nerviously. A faint blush colors Tooth's cheeks and her feathers puff slightly. She glances at Jack, fearing what his reaction to that will be. But he can't reply. The words are stuck in his throat. The images and the sounds are still fresh in his mind. The worried faces of his friends stare down at him at his lack of answers and his vision blurs. He only realizes its relieved tears that blur it when they start rolling down his cheeks.
A hesitant, shaky arm shoots out to grab Tooth and he pulls her close to him, surrounding her with his arms, a sob shaking his shoulders, his head buried in the crook of her neck. She's shocked, he can tell, but even that's replaced with worry as she realizes he's crying and she caresses his hair, hushing him softly.
"It's OK, it's OK. Everything's fine. We're here." she whispers softly, her other hand drawing comforting circles on his back. Sandy shoots a disapproving glance at a very confused and disgruntled Bunnymund before approaching and putting an arm around Jack's shoulder and resting his head against his. After a moment, Bunnymund joins, putting an arm around Tooth and another around Jack, his head low, his ears brushing against his hair and her feathers. Finally, North puts both massive arms around whole group, tightly but not too much. Jack can feel their hearts beating, see and touch their unharmed limbs and hear their comforting voices as they all keep saying that it's OK, that he's safe.
"But…are…are you guys OK?" he finally whispers, hesitant, sniffling. They all hear him and exchange shocked glances. Only Tooth ventures an answer, whispered into his scalp.
"…yes, Jack. We're all safe"
The relief that floods at the sound –or rather, the feeling- of her voice is so much he turns the sob coming out of his lips into a small chuckle, and holds her a little tighter.
"…good"
C.C (a) the Author here.
...I really don't know what to say. Not sure of what prompted this, but it tuned out pretty decent so I kept it.
Destroy me on your comments.