[DISCLAIMERS]: I don't even own an illegal copy of the movie yet, let alone a legal one… or the rights to the movie. *cough*

A/N: Well, it's that time of year again! Valentine's Day! And you can probably guess why I'm posting fanfiction today… I am forever single ; _ ; but enough about my romantic ineptitude, let's continue on to the story you came here to read.

~Roxy~

Blame Cupid

Cupid—the guardian of love.

Yeah right.

He was just some snot-nosed brat who liked to go around murdering peoples' hearts with the inconvenient emotion he was associated with, typically using his arrows to play cruel games. Seriously, who enjoyed a job centered in twisting the frail hearts of innocent civilians? Maybe that was a question better left unanswered.

Jack sat, brooding in the lower branches of a tree that leaned gently over his lake, tossing snowball after snowball onto the frozen surface of the water, probably confusing passersby with each subsequent impact on the ice. He hated Valentine's Day, but make no mistake his hatred was based in legitimate reasons; the biggest problem he had with the holiday was his atrocious luck. After 318 years, Jack had never had a Valentine—not even during the eighteen years he was alive, let alone the three hundred he'd been forced to spend by himself. His misfortune couldn't end there, though; why would it? In all the time he'd been around, this was the first year the winter spirit had been pierced by one of those galling arrows, but it had turned out to be another one of that malevolent cherub's sick jokes.

E. Aster Bunnymund.

Really? Was Cupid drunk? He must've been, because he made two fatal gaffes; one, he'd blatantly ignored the interspecies boundary, two, he'd completely forgotten to smite both parties—a critical step in Jack's opinion. He started lividly hurling the snowballs, landing a few clear on the other side of the lake.

"Stupid Valentine's Day, stupid Cupid, stupid Cottontail, stupid—"

"'ey, who you callin' stupid, Frostbite?" Bunnymund's voice caught Jack off guard, causing the young guardian to flail and nearly drop his staff.

"B-Bunny!" Jack swiveled himself around on the branch so he could comfortably look down at the Pooka standing at the base of his tree. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry mate, I just came to ask what was botherin' ya."

'Oh shit, is he on to me?'

"Pft, nothing's bothering me. Why would you think something was bothering me?"

'Play it cool, play it cool!'

"Well, ya haven't lobbed in to piss me off all week. And now I think I know why." Bunnymund shot Jack an unnervingly knowing grin that made the snow imp's heart leap to his throat.

'Dammit, he is on to me!' Jack mustered as cocky a smirk as he could to mask his elevating anxiety.

"Really? Hm, interesting—do tell, Cottontail." Jack drummed his fingers on his staff—something that, if examined closely, could be categorized as a nervous habit, but nothing that could tip in favor of a physical giveaway.

"You're just upset 'cause ya don't have a Valentine."

"What? No! I just don't like the holiday. It's stupid, gaudy, and over commercialized." Jack half-lied through his teeth, disregarding the thin layer of frost that snuck its way onto his cheeks.

"So I heard." Bunnymund chuckled, referring to the miniature Valentine related outburst he'd walked in on. "Hey Frostbite, why don't you c'mon down. Just because ya don't have a Sheila doesn't mean ya gotta spend Valentine's Day alone."

"I don't want a 'Sheila'." Jack grumbled to himself, but judging by the curious twitch in one of Bunnymund's ears, the snow imp's comment hadn't gone unheard.

"What was'at?"

The frost on Jack's cheeks spread; he hadn't expected the Pooka to hear that.

"Huh? Nothing. I didn't say anything."

The skeptical look he got from Bunnymund did nothing to settle his unease; if anything, the expression only further frayed his already unraveling nerves.

"Are ya comin' or not?"

Jack blinked; he hadn't realized that he'd spaced out until then and it didn't contribute very well to the whole 'play it cool' tactic he had been pulling. "Uh, yeah. Sorry, I just zoned out for a second there." The younger guardian dropped from his branch, landing wrong and slipping gracelessly on his own ice and crashing to the ground, falling hard on his back. With the wind knocked out of him, Jack could barely groan out a pained whine. He propped himself up on his elbow and brought a hand up to soothe the sore bump forming on the back of his head. Smooth, Frost, real smooth. Just as Jack shifted to stand, a pair of furry arms found their way around his waist, pulling him to his feet and against Bunnymund's chest.

Jack was silent for a moment, taking the time to register the situation he'd been pulled into—literally. Once all the puzzle pieces finally clicked, the winter spirit thrashed half-heartedly.

"B-Bunny?! What are you doing?"

"Helpin' ya up. Ya took a nasty spill there, Jackie-boy."

Jack muttered something unintelligible, weakly shoving Bunnymund away from him.

"Yeah, well I don't need your help, Fuzzy." He kicked his staff up and caught it casually in one hand, ignoring the scoff he earned from the older guardian. "And I certainly don't need—or want—your pity." He started drumming his fingers on his staff again. "I mean, I've spent 318 consecutive Valentine's Days alone, it's nothing I'm not used to." As he spoke, Jack's voice escalated in both speed and volume just enough to be noticeable. He let out a frustrated sigh, already turning to walk away. "I need to take a walk." Bouncing the rod of his staff on his shoulder, the winter spirit stomped huffily into the dense woods and out of sight.

After about an hour of quiet moping around the forest, Jack trudged back to the tree Bunnymund had found him perched in earlier. Storming off the way he did could have been without a doubt an exceedingly childish thing to do and while the snow imp could recognize himself as a tad immature—oh, the curse of being forever a teenager—he would deny up and down that he was in any way juvenile in how he handled important situations. Jack figured love confessions didn't really fall into that category of "dire importance"; he put no one in any physical danger by keeping his mouth shut on the topic, so why blab and make it awkward? He decided that, at the time, the best course of action was to just detach himself from the problem and everything would be alright, but everything wasn't alright.

During his sulk through the woods, Jack's depressing thoughts didn't vanish, they only festered so that by the time he got back, he was in a worse mood than before because it was bad enough that he'd been a jerk, but now he was a jerk who was still alone on Valentine's Day. Life was cruel, so cruel.

Jack swiftly hopped back up to the same low branch and hooked his staff on the thinner end by its crook before flopping lazily onto his face, his arms and legs dangling on either side of the branch. He groaned—that had hurt more than he expected—and lay like that for a few still moments before sitting up. He scooted over to where the base of the branch met the trunk of the tree and knocked the side of his head on the rough surface. The winter spirit let his eyes to wander, dolefully scanning the familiar shapes around where he was seated on the tree when a flash of blush pink caught the corner of his eye.

"Hm?" Jack turned his head quizzically. Had there always been a bird's nest there? More importantly, was there any kind of bird that laid vermilion eggs—wait. He expertly climbed his way over to the branch the round bundle of twigs was balanced on top of. Those were definitely not bird's eggs. There were three uniquely decorated eggs set snugly around the edge of the nest; each was painted a different combination of amaranth, cerise, and carnation pink with wispy swirls of floral white spiraling down the eggs' smooth sides creating a pattern of lines so thin and intricate it resembled delicate lace. Jack marveled at the untraditional Valentine sentiment, almost not seeing the folded paper in the center of the nest. He plucked the small note from among the eggs and unfolded it eagerly, reading the short message scrawled across the paper.

My offer still stands, Snowflake.

Jack shamelessly frosted, staring dumbly at the note; Bunnymund almost never referred to him as 'Snowflake', it was a fond nickname as rare as Tooth eating hard candy.

Even though he wasn't originally going to apologize to Bunnymund for his behavior from earlier—after all, the Pooka was used to Jack's fairly frequently inappropriate conduct—now the young guardian felt overly obligated to do so… or at least give an impassive thank you.

Jack stuffed his hand holding the note into the pocket of his hoodie, turning the square piece of paper over in his palm and retrieving his staff with his free hand.

'All I've gotta do is say 'sorry' and 'thanks', right? How hard can that be?'

Apparently very hard.

It took Jack longer than he expected to find Bunnymund and when he finally did stumble across the Pooka who was snoozing in the shade of a tree growing low to the ground, his throat tightened and he lost his words. He crouched in front of Bunnymund and poked the older guardian with the butt of his staff, physically pushing the Pooka out of his nap. A slate ear twitched and jade green eyes cracked open to stare up at Jack who went rigid under the intent gaze.

"Er… Hey Cottontail." The snow imp waved hesitantly and backed up a foot or so, standing and leaning on his heels.

"I thought ya said ya wanted to be left alone, Ice Block." Bunnymund pointed out, sitting up and keeping his eyes on Jack as the young guardian uneasily shuffled his feet.

"What? Am I not allowed to change my mind? Besides, that's not why I'm here." Jack simpered, trying to look and sound confident—not so easy when your feet refused to stay still and your voice threatened to crack. Bunnymund cocked a curious brow. "I just came to say that I'm kinda sorry for storming off earlier. And uh…" Jack looked down, mumbling a reticent 'thanks'. "Hey…"

"Hm?"

"Why'd you do that?" bistre eyebrows drew down into a puzzled furrow. "It's not like you to do something nice for me—what's up, Cottontail? You secretly got a thing for me, or something?" Jack forced an arrogant sneer, keeping his tone light and mocking even though his heart had dropped to his stomach and his breath inaudibly hitched in the back of his throat.

There was a long pause during which Jack's smile fell and a wave of awkward hit him like a ton of bricks coated in cement with a big 'fuck you' stamped on the front of each. He hadn't even admitted to anything and everything just sort of train-wrecked all over the place. Oops.

"What if I did?" Bunnymund's sudden comment shocked Jack and the winter spirit snapped his head up to blink stupidly at him.

"Huh?"

"I said, what if I di—"

He wasn't sure what compelled him to do so, but Jack leapt forward, tackling an unsuspecting Bunnymund in a rather enthusiastic hug. Damn his impulsiveness. Damn it to hell.

"Uh… Jack?"

Instead of scrambling off the confused Pooka like a smart person, Jack just latched on to the older guardian's fur more tightly.

"What're ya doi—"

"Blame Cupid."

"For what?"

"This." Jack leaned forward, tugging Bunnymund's head down so he could easily press his cold lips against the Pooka's; it all happened too fast for the winter spirit to think about what he was actually doing. Seriously… that impulsiveness—damn it to the lowest ring of hell where it could play dress-up and have tea parties with Satan.

When logic finally opened the floodgate of infatuation and reality rushed back to Jack, he wretched away from Bunnymund, frost quickly seizing his cheeks and wasting no time in migrating down his neck. He shot his bondi blue eyes to the side, avidly averting his nervousness to the suddenly very interesting ground. He braced himself for the inevitable rejection that surprisingly never came. He shot the Pooka a tentative look.

"…Bunny…?"

"Hm?"

"Aren't you mad?" Jack decided it was safe to fully lift his eyes to meet Bunnymund's. "N-not that I care or anything… like… that." He cleared his throat. 'He is sooo not believing me right now.'

Bunnymund let out a breathy chuckle and pulled the younger guardian back against his chest, nuzzling the top of his head.

"Oh, I think ya do."

"So… does this mean you don't hate me again?" Jack spoke quietly, treading carefully with his words just to be safe.

"Nah. You've kinda grown on me, believe it or not."

With a silent sigh of relief, the winter spirit relaxed in Bunnymund's arms. "Happy Valentine's Day, Cottontail."

"You too, Snowflake."

…

"Cupid still sucks."

A/N: ; u ; D-Did I really get this up ON TIME!? OMG! Anyway, yeah… here it is. Happy Valentine's Day everybody! This oneshot was actually pretty easy to write because I sympathize with Jack up until that last chunk about actually ending up with the love interest… *cough*

Reviews will be met with a yummy cupcake especially for Valentine's day! Flamers, however, will be punished and shipped with Jack's impulsiveness to the lowest ring of hell and all that jazz.

~Roxy~

Fun Fact: Cupid is a Furry Fangirl. o3o-A claim by Slaycinder. (isn't cupid a guy? xD)