A/N. Here are just some little drabbles for you to enjoy. Some are AU, some are crack and some have the potential to be very weird forms of canon-compliant, but I'll leave it to you to decide which is which. I just thought I'd upload them rather than leave them lounging about in my files. I've marked it as complete because I probably won't update, but they're all complete in themselves anyway. Rated T for a few bits of language.
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1 - LIGHT SHOW
Jack skids into the globe room and crashes into a defeated-looking Sandy. Sandy is accompanied by a defeated-looking Tooth, a defeated-looking Bunny, a defeated-looking North, half a dozen defeated-looking mini-fairies, and several crying elves. Jack blinks. He looks in the direction they are looking, then turns back to look at them, then turns back to look at the globe.
"What's going on?" he asks. "Why is the globe black?"
North blows his nose loudly into an embroidered handkerchief, too overcome to speak.
"What d'you think, mate?" says Bunny, acerbic in his bitterness. "All the lights have gone out. They went out this morning."
Jack gapes. "This morning…?" he says. "But I feel fine."
"Yeah," says Bunny, "you and your - what, ten? - believers… Not surprised you wouldn't feel the difference."
Jack is too bewildered to feel stung. "Um…" he says. "Hang on-"
"North tried to call us out with the Aurora," murmurs Tooth, sniffing and wiping her eyes with an arm. "But even the Aurora failed. It failed, Jack! The Aurora hasn't failed in three thousand years!"
"Yeti left you message on pond," weeps North.
"Yep, I got it…" says Jack, "but guys…"
"Jack, is no use…"
"There's no point protesting it, y' bloody stupid frozen popsicle stick! It's done now! It's ruined! Our life's work! Gone!" and Bunny's voice cracks on that last word and he falls silent again, lip trembling.
"Jack," says Tooth, "I'm sorry. I just… please…"
Sandy's light is dimmer than usual and he doesn't even bother to make any symbols. He is looking not at the globe but at the floor.
Jack's jaw hardens. He rolls his eyes, and flies off. "If you won't listen," he mutters.
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Ten minutes later, and suddenly, the globe lights up. The Guardians stare on in disbelief as all previous belief is restored in a single second, and North gives a broken man's cry of delight, just as Bunny falls to his knees, Sandy's eyes widen, and Tooth and her mini-fairies gasp in bewildered joy.
Then the lights go out again.
There is a horrible, hope-cracked quiet.
Then the lights on the globe are restored, the room is illuminated and the Guardians are left standing in utter confusion at all the once-again myriad lights.
Then the lights go out again.
North collapses to the floor in despairing confusion. The elves have long ago given up being upset and have wandered off in search of food. Sandy is staring at his hands as if madly wondering whether they belong to him or not. Tooth is starting to hyperventilate.
Then the lights go on again.
Then off.
Then on.
They remain on. They stay on. The lights stay.
"But what…?" North says faintly.
"I don't…" says Bunny.
Sandy shakes his head.
"Jack!" says Tooth, catching sight of him. "Jack, it's so horrible! The lights-"
Jack ignores her, striding over towards North and holding out to him the squirming elf he is gripping by the scruff of the neck. The elf is not even trying to look innocent, and Jack has one eyebrow raised.
"If you'll excuse me," he says, addressing the rest of them, "I've got a snowball fight to get back to in Burgess with my thirty-eight believers."
"Miracles," snarks Bunny. "He can count."
"Shut up," says Jack, "Mr I-didn't-check-the-fuse-box." He turns back to North. "Elves like pretty switches," he says. Then he leaves.
The Guardians blink for a while in silence, and then look accusingly at North.
"I did not know we had a fuse box!" is North's only excuse.
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2 - STICK ENVY
"Baby Tooth!" shouts Jack.
"The staff, Jack," says Pitch.
Jack blinks. "Um…" he says. He hands it to Pitch. "Alright, now let her go."
"No," says Pitch, "you said you wanted to be alone. So be alone!"
Baby Tooth twitters indignantly and then stabs Pitch's hand with her beak so that he yelps. She gets tossed into the air for her efforts and is swallowed by a nearby crevasse.
"No!" shouts Jack. He darts after her and dives into the crack.
"What-?" Pitch says. "I've still got your staff, Jack!"
"Keep it!" comes the muffled shout. "You hurt Baby Tooth for a stick, you bastard!"
Enraged, Pitch halves the staff with a twisted snap just as Jack comes shooting out of the crevasse holding Baby Tooth safely in one hand. Pitch stares. Taking advantage of his moment of confusion, Jack freezes him to the ground.
"You snapped the large stick," says Jack. "Big deal. What did you expect would happen? My powers aren't tied to dead wood y'know." And he flies off.
Pitch stays stuck to the ground holding two halves of a large broken stick. He can't do much else.
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3 - IGNORANCE IS BLISS
Jack bursts into Jamie's bedroom in a frenzy of excitement. A naked Jamie and his naked girlfriend Pippa scream and collapse onto the floor in a mess of duvet and sheets.
"I'll come back later," says Jack.
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Jack bursts into Jamie's bedroom in a frenzy of excitement. Jamie freezes guiltily and hides the bloody brush behind his back. Then he throws a pillow over the half-finished pentagram on the floor. Then he clears his throat. Then he snuffs out one of the thirteen candles with his foot.
"I'll come back later," says Jack.
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Jack bursts into Jamie's bedroom in a frenzy of excitement. An eight-foot-tall demon lord of darkness stares back at him. Jamie stops signing something on the floor, pauses in shock, eeps, and then pushes the eight-foot-tall demon lord of darkness into his closet and slams the door.
"When the fuck is later!?" says Jack.
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4 - TEARS OF ICE
As the Jack on-screen slowly sinks into the icy water and Rose weeps on her door, Jack Frost, who is sitting in Jamie's living room being introduced to pop culture, finds his eyes tearing up in response. He blinks them away. More tears. This movie is sad, and he can't help it, for goodness sake! But he doesn't want to deal with this right now! Lying across his lap, Jamie (who is himself sniffling and wiping his eyes) looks up.
"It's ok to cry," he says.
Jack's eyes water fiercely and then start to- no no no… "No it's not!" he yelps. "Pause it! Pause it!" It is too late though, and, as Jamie pauses the movie bemusedly with the remote, Jack finds himself desperately trying to stop the tears in his eyes from doing the thing that they normally do, which is harden into large, bulbous icicles off of his eyelashes and then mount up until he can't see, but they have already started and it is too late and he can't stop crying.
"Fudge and sugar…" mumbles Jack, trying to wipe the water directly off his eyes but ending up only smearing it around so it freezes more quickly. The icicles have already gained an inch.
Jamie starts giggling. He's seen. He nudges a sleeping Sophie with a foot and she wakes up, only to blink and then to collapse into laughter.
"I hate you both," says Jack. He starts tugging at the icicles but to no avail. One of them snaps halfway, leaving the rest of his eyelashes still buried in spherical blocks.
Jamie starts to lean forward, supposedly to help, and then draws back with a look of 'I've got an idea' and jumps off the couch and runs out of the room. Sophie does not help either. She is still laughing.
A moment or two later, Jack sees a blurry flash. Everything else is obscured by a sheen of ice. Luckily, he has stopped crying, but it is too late and the tears have already done their damage. He hopes he will not have to rip out his eyelashes.
"What did you do?" he says.
"Took a picture!" says Jamie, and then squeals as Jack makes a blind grab for the camera. "I'm showing Bunny!"
"You dare!" snaps Jack. "You dare and I'm snowing you in."
Jamie giggles. He runs out of the room. (Sophie is still laughing.)
"MOM!" he hears Jamie yell up the stairs. "CAN WE HAVE SOME HOT WATER PLEASE!? WE NEED TO UNFREEZE JACK!"
"Just a moment!" comes Jamie's mom's voice.
Jack has never felt so humiliated in his life.
(And it takes an entire hour to get rid of the ice.)
(And, yes, he does have to rip out some of his eyelashes.)
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A/N - Whenever I read about Jack's tears freezing, they seem to always become icy after they've left his eyes. I don't know about you, but that sounds a little bit too convenient to me, so I fixed it. Anyway, I hope you liked them all, and please review! :)