So, I ended up writing this simply because I got a sudden urge to write about tea. So I somehow found a story to write that heavily involves tea. My husband said that this was more of a tea fanfic than a Rise of the Guardians fanfic. *chuckles* Perhaps I'm hopeless. But I'm in love with tea, so what can I say?
Disclaimer: I own lots of tea, but I don't own ROTG, so I have to disclaim that one. Out of both the tea fandom and the ROTG fandom, I can only claim ownership in one of them. ;)
Jack couldn't imagine a curse in existence that was worse than the one he had just gotten hit with. While he had never heard of the Erasure spell before Pitch had hit him with it, he knew what it was doing to him the instant it was upon him. And despite not wanting to give Pitch the satisfaction, he was terrified.
Thankfully he hadn't been alone at the time Pitch had struck, and so Sandy and Tooth were able to help him drive Pitch off to who knew where while they regrouped and figured out what to do. But even as they fought him off, he could feel precious time ticking away.
Once Pitch vanished amid a flurry of his evil sounding cackling, the Guardian trio took a moment to catch their breath, and then Jack turned at once to Toothiana. "What was that spell that he hit me with?"
The worried look in her eyes told him more than he wanted to know. She clasped her hands over her mouth, then said, "Oh Jack, that spell was never meant to be used on anything living. I don't know how Pitch got a hold of it since North tried to keep it under lock and key, but it's bad."
Jack thought he already knew the answer to the next question he was about to ask, but the urgency of the situation forced him to plunge forward anyway. "But what does it do?"
Tooth sighed. "It's the Erasure spell. It deletes the subject from existence."
Another jolt of fear shot through Jack's nervous system at the sound of her words. He had at least sort of already known that in his gut, but actually hearing her confirm it was making him start to feel a little dizzy. He placed a hand on his forehead as he tried to steady himself, but it didn't help much. "Okay, okay," he said as he took a few shallow breaths in his effort to calm down, but it didn't help. "How long do I have before it-" Jack couldn't bring himself to admit what was going to happen if the spell had its way, but Tooth would know what he was trying to say anyway.
Her gaze dropped to the ground and her shoulders shook. "A-About half an hour, I think."
"HALF AN HOUR?!" He didn't even bother regulating his voice by this point. There was no point in trying to stay calm when he had so little time in which he could find some way to survive this fate. "I only have about thirty minutes left to live?!"
Tooth then shook her head, a motion which made Jack's stomach drop. She then started to sob. "You had half an hour from the time he first cast the spell on you. It's meant to be a really quick spell to use on objects that are impossible to remove otherwise."
Jack's eyes went wide as he gripped the sides of his head. "But-But-that was like fifteen minutes ago, wasn't it? Are you telling me that I only have maybe fifteen minutes left to live?" The dizziness got even worse as his breath sped up to a rate where he knew he would have passed out by now if he had been human. "How-How do we reverse this spell? We can reverse it, right?"
Tooth's face contorted into an anguished expression as she seemed to be trying to force herself to remember some sort of long forgotten information. If only North had been here, as he was their local expert on these sorts of spells. Or even Bunny, since he could have transported them instantly to the north pole so they could get the information they needed. But as the situation stood, he was stuck with the other two slowpokes among the Guardians.
A glance past Tooth revealed Sandy to be diligently pursuing his work of sending out dreams to wherever in the world he was sending them to. As much as Jack respected Sandy's work, he couldn't help but be mildly annoyed that Sandy wasn't giving his full attention to Jack's situation at the moment since his time was ticking by at such an alarming rate. He took as deep of a breath as he was able to at the moment and turned back to Tooth, choosing not to pick a fight over this. Even if he perished in this fight, the Guardians' work needed to continue. He knew that. He was just scared.
"Tea!" Tooth's fingers snapped in an 'aha' moment, her face suddenly morphing into a look of clarity. "Something like this has happened before, a long, long time ago. The victims were able to break their own curse while drinking tea."
Jack was incredulous. "Tea? Are you serious?"
"Absolutely." Tooth nodded as hard as she could, then poked Jack hard in the chest with her index finger. "There's something about tea that gives the person enough of a boost to break through this. You need to get some tea in you, right now!"
Jack coughed and then gestured around them, more irritated at the situation than ever. "Well, in case you haven't noticed, we're out in the middle of nowhere here, and we happen to all be the slow traveling Guardians. Where are we supposed to get this tea in time?"
Tooth shrugged. "In the nearest town?"
Jack slapped a palm over his face and growled slightly. "Tooth, we're in America. Do you have any idea how hard it is to just stumble upon tea here?"
The look on Tooth's face told him that she had no idea, and he sighed again, trying to calm himself down enough to avoid snapping at her. None of this was her fault, even though he seemed to be taking it out on her a bit. But there was no way to get to a country that regularly drank tea in the time he still had as none of them could travel instantaneously. This was more terror than he had felt in a long time.
A small, golden hand clapped itself onto his shoulder, and Jack looked up into the face of the Sandman. The look Sandy gave him was composed of a little encouraging smile combined with a couple fiercely determined eyebrows. He jabbed a finger in the direction of the nearest town, then once again planted Jack with a piercing gaze. Jack sighed, then held his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright, I'll go and look. But seriously, I don't know where to find tea in Burgess."
"Just go, Jack," said Tooth. "We'll go get help." Before he had the chance to object, the other two Guardians sped off. He took a deep breath, shrugged, and turned toward the direction of Burgess.
It didn't take him long to reach the town, but as his dizziness only worsened with each passing minute, he found that his ability to use logic slipped through his fingers more and more. Where did they serve tea? He knew it took some time to prepare, but he wasn't sure if he had enough time to wait for it to steep. Would a little town like this have any place he could get instant tea?
Maybe a supermarket would have some in the store somewhere, but in the state his mind was in, he couldn't remember where the nearest supermarket was. It had never mattered before. If he was having this much trouble figuring out where the supermarket was, then he was bound to have even more trouble with finding the stuff once he was actually in the store.
Wait, didn't coffeeshops serve tea sometimes? Jack darted down to a little coffeeshop he knew of on a corner not far from his pond and ran through the door which had blessedly been propped open on this day. As soon as he got in, however, he ran into a new conundrum. There was tea on the menu alright, but it wasn't out in the open. He would have to order it, but there seemed no way for him to do so. How does an invisible person ask for tea, anyway? Stamping his foot in defeat, he turned and darted back out into the street.
Time was ticking. He could feel it more and more with each passing minute. A glance down at his hand made him do a double take, as he had almost thought he'd seen right through his fingers for a second, but it seemed he had been mistaken. Jack caught his breath as he held his hand over his chest. He was fine. He was still fine. He just needed to remember that.
Where else could he go in town to get tea? He definitely knew there were no tea shops in this little town, and he was running out of ideas. He really couldn't think all that well anyway. That spell was affecting his brain, or was that just the stress? Either way, he needed to get somewhere that would allow him to think. The only place nearby that he knew of that would give him that kind of peace of mind was his pond.
He might as well go there as anywhere, and so he launched himself into the air and flew in the direction of his pond. As he began his descent, he happened to spot the Bennett house just beside the pond, and he altered his flight path to land in their yard instead. Might as well go there as anywhere else. At least there was a slight chance that they might have tea, even if tea wasn't all that popular in America. It was a pity that coffee wouldn't work, because he would have been able to find that. Even if he had only been able to get it by stealing it from one of the patrons of the coffeeshop, he would have been able to do it fairly easily. Pretty much everyone in that shop at the time had a cup of coffee in front of them.
Jack wasted no time as he flew up to Jamie's window and threw it open, then tumbled through it onto Jamie's floor. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he felt his stomach do a couple flips. His hands once again blinked out, but when he looked at them again, they were fully visible. Or almost. When he looked really hard, he could barely make out the grain of the wood of Jamie's floor beneath them. Jack gulped. This wasn't good. He had to hurry.
He leapt to his feet and bolted out of Jamie's room. "Jamie? Sophie? Is anybody here?" He glanced in Sophie's room, but he saw no sign of the little girl. He sighed and began running down the stairs, tripping over a couple of them in his carelessness. "Jamie? Sophie?" Still no response. Great. They would have to be at school at the moment that might very well be his last. He wouldn't even have the chance to say goodbye at this rate.
Jack reached the bottom floor and continued to run around the house, calling and looking for Jamie and Sophie, but he still came up with nothing. Once he reached the dining room, he did at least find signs of life in the form of their mother sitting and reading a book, but he was afraid that she wouldn't be all that helpful to him at the moment. She wouldn't be able to see or hear him to know what his predicament was. He sighed and turned, figuring that he might as well leave her in peace with her book and her tea and-
He froze in place. Mrs. Bennett was a tea drinker. And she was drinking tea right now. He spun around and ran over to the table, hardly daring to believe his luck. Her cup was almost empty, but there was a whole pot of tea in the middle of the table. And oddly, there was a lonely cup sitting across the table from Mrs. Bennett, filled with tea as though waiting for someone to come and relieve it of the burden of carrying this strange liquid.
Jack was only too happy to oblige, and he plopped himself into the chair, then shakily reached out for the cup. His hands were definitely growing transparent by now, and as such they were making it very difficult for him to actually grab onto the cup. After a few failed attempts, he finally got a hold of it and lifted it to his lips with shaky hands.
The tea had obviously been sitting out for a few minutes since it wasn't insanely hot, which Jack was immensely grateful for. He didn't have time to wait for the tea to cool to a bearable level or to try and cool it himself, though he didn't exactly fancy burning himself with a hot beverage either. It was still a preferable fate to dying, but given the choice, he would have preferred to not have to deal with either situation, thank you very much.
From the very first sip, Jack could feel how much he needed this. He couldn't say why, but Tooth was right. There really was something about this drink that helped empower him to fight off the curse. The first few sips were met with much shakiness, but as he worked his way through the cup, he found it gradually becoming easier. When he finally drained the last drop from his cup, he glanced at his fingers. He was blessedly opaque again, but his fingers still visibly shook. The curse was still there, even if it had been thrown back a little bit. He was going to need more tea.
There was that whole pot of tea in the middle of the table, and Jack found himself leaning towards it as he tried to ponder whether he was strong enough to lift it to pour more tea into his cup. One way or another, he was going to have to find a way to get some of it, since he could tell the curse was trying to take back the control it had briefly lost due to the tea.
Jack set his cup back on the table, and the sound of porcelain hitting wood alerted Mrs. Bennett to his presence as her face jolted up from her book. A look of surprise crossed her face, only to be replaced by a look of understanding as she placed a bookmark in her book and set it aside. "Oh, you actually did come," she said, then flashed a smile in his direction. "Did you want some more tea?"
The only reaction Jack could muster up was to have his jaw drop as he watched the woman before him. Was she talking to him? Could she actually see him? But that was impossible, wasn't it? He certainly couldn't detect her belief in him. What was going on?
Mrs. Bennett then stood up and grabbed the teapot, then poured some more tea into Jack's cup and then her own before sitting back down. Jack glanced uncertainly between her and his cup for several seconds before she gestured toward his cup. "Well, go on. Drink it. I know you need it right now."
How she knew that, he couldn't say. He wanted to know more than anything, but his top priority was to recover from the trauma his system was enduring at the hands of this spell. So he grasped the cup and greedily began to drink the tea. He was pretty sure that the tea that came directly out of the pot was warmer than what was in his first cup, but somehow it wasn't bothering him that it was. Strange. Maybe he didn't care what he felt at the moment so long as he felt something. He had come dangerously close to not feeling anything at all.
He had gulped down that cup almost in one breath, and then he slammed the empty cup down on the table as he gasped to regain his breath. Mrs. Bennett chuckled in amusement, only to once again refill his cup without asking questions. It was really weird that she was being so accommodating about this, not to mention that she could see him. He wanted to question her so badly, but those questions could wait.
He was still slightly jittery, though thankfully not as shaky as he had been before. Still, continuing to drink the tea seemed the wisest move at the moment. Jack lifted his third cup to his mouth and finally sipped it at a much more calm rate. Despite the caffeine content that he knew was in tea, he could feel his heart rate slowing down as the sense of panic drained out of him. It was okay. He was going to be okay. He wasn't sure why or exactly how, but he knew he would be okay.
There was no need to gulp the tea down at a ridiculous rate now, so Jack rested his cup on the table as he stopped to breathe. Mrs. Bennett took this as her cue to finally speak up. "So are you really Jamie's friend?"
Jack's eyes widened for a moment before he nodded. "How-How did you know that?"
She shrugged dismissively as she lifted her own cup of tea to her lips. "I was taking a nap just a little while ago, and I had a strange dream. There was a boy who I had never seen before, but he was a very close friend of Jamie's. He was running from something that threatened his life, and he started begging me to make him some tea. I told him I was busy, but he kept begging me until he faded away. After he had disappeared, his ghost came back and said, 'I wouldn't have died if you had made me tea. Jamie wouldn't have had to cry over me being gone.' and then the ghost disappeared too. Then I woke up."
Jack glanced back down at his tea, then took another sip as he thought on that story. "And then you woke up and made tea?"
Mrs. Bennett nodded, sipping from her own cup before setting it down on the table. "I don't get that kind of dream often. It felt urgent. I've learned by now that if I don't act on that kind of dream, I will always live to regret it. I figured that if I was wrong and that boy didn't actually turn up, then I was only out a pot of tea."
Jack closed his eyes and bowed his head in deep respect. "I can't thank you enough for that."
Now that he thought about it, that did explain why Sandy was still sending dreams out while his own life was in peril. Was he seeking out someone in Burgess who could make some tea for him before he arrived so he wouldn't have to wait? That was the only explanation he could think of. And here he'd been mad at the little guy. He was going to have to apologize to him later. And Tooth too. They had only been trying to help, and they'd helped more than he had realized at the time. He had just been too panicked to see what they were trying to do.
Jack raised his eyes once again to look at the woman before him. "But how can you see me? I didn't think you believed enough to see me."
She raised an eyebrow as she regarded him. "Why wouldn't I see you? You're sitting right there."
"You didn't see me come in, did you?"
Mrs. Bennett paused in her thoughts a moment as she stared out the window. "I was rather startled when I just looked up and saw you sitting there. I had expected you to come knocking at the door if you actually did show up."
Jack bowed his head in awkwardness and then attempted to feebly laugh it off. "Yeah, sorry about that. I was kind of panicking and looking for Jamie. I had no idea that I would be able to ask you for help."
She nodded, seeming to accept this for the time being despite the utter weirdness of the whole situation. Jack then took a deep breath, reveling in the ability to breathe properly again after that huge scare. He could tell that he wasn't actually free from the curse yet. It was a hard one to shake off, but he wasn't limited to just half an hour of life anymore. With any luck, he could just keep pushing the problem back until it was either completely gone or the other Guardians found him and fixed it for him. He took another sip of the tea, finally taking the time to savor the taste. With the desperation gone, drinking it slowly enough to enjoy it was finally possible.
He pulled the cup away, raising his eyebrow as he regarded it before looking back up at Mrs. Bennett. "What kind of tea is this, anyway? I don't think I've ever tasted anything as..." He waved his hand as he tried to summon words to describe what he had tasted. "...As... flighty as this? It sort of reminds me of how I feel in the midst of a strong wind."
Mrs. Bennett smiled. "I could see that. This is a personal blend of mine that I call Heart's Desire. It has a green tea base, but it also has ginseng, rose, peppermint, spearmint, huckleberry, rosemary, and lavender."
Jack looked down at his cup, then started to nod as he began to understand. "I can see why I thought of the wind." He took another sip. "I have to admit that I'm not much of a tea drinker, but this tea is amazing!"
"Thank you." She chuckled.
Jack took another deep breath, impressed that he could breathe as deeply as he was doing now despite it being so difficult before. He stared into his cup, catching a shimmering reflection of his face staring back at him. He almost thought that the reflection's face looked a bit more flushed than his face was supposed to look, but he brushed that notion away. Of course his reflection was off color. It was reflected on tea.
Something still bothered him a bit though. "Why did you go to the trouble to make this fancy of tea? All I needed was tea. You didn't have to waste your good tea on me."
Mrs. Bennett chuckled again and shook her head before propping her chin on her hand and regarding Jack with an amused smile. "After getting a dream like that, I wasn't willing to take a chance that Jamie could honestly lose a friend over this. I had a friend teach me a bit about tea magic a few years back, so I made up the blend I use to grant wishes. I thought it could give you an extra boost."
"Heh." Jack smiled in amusement at this. "I'm afraid that I haven't bothered to make a wish. Sorry if I wasted your efforts." In truth, Jack didn't want to admit that he highly doubted that whatever magic she used would have any effect on him. Humans rarely had a clue what they were doing when they messed around with magic, and he really doubted Mrs. Bennett could wield it.
She shook her head, not even batting an eye at his statement. "I didn't make it that way. I find that people rarely ever know what they truly want, so I put the intention into the tea to automatically grant you your heart's deepest desire. No wishing required."
Now that caused Jack to bat an eye, and he nearly choked on his drink. He shivered a moment as he thought about the implications of a drink that could truly grant him his heart's desire, but stopped as soon as he remembered that it was only a tea that Mrs. Bennett had created. She didn't have the ability to actually grant his true wish, as much as he wished she could.
His eyes started to itch, and he quickly rubbed at them before the itching could turn to tears. There was nothing more annoying to a winter sprite than tears since they had a tendency to freeze against his skin. It was silly to want to cry anyway. All he was doing was drinking tea. Tea wasn't supposed to make a guy cry.
He glanced down at the strange liquid in his cup. "What's so special about tea, anyway? I got hit with a curse that was making me disappear, and I was told that tea had something special about it that would make me able to fight the curse." He looked up from the tea and into Mrs. Bennett's face once again. "Why couldn't I just have had coffee or hot chocolate or something?"
"Hmm," she said, "I can't say I understand much about curses like that, but I do know that tea has a really rare amino acid in it that sends your brain into the alpha state." At the blank look she received from Jack, she said, "Basically, it puts you into a meditative trance."
Jack glanced back down at the beverage in his cup, suddenly starting to wonder if maybe tea really did have some magic to it. "Really?" He looked back up at her. "Isn't that the state of mind you need to be in to perform any kind of magic?"
"I would assume so." She shrugged as she looked at her own cup. "I can't say that I know much about it aside from tea magic, but I know your brain needs to be in alpha for any kind of creativity or spiritual work. If you're trying to overcome a curse, then you definitely need to be in alpha."
"Heh," said Jack, "what was my brain doing when I was still panicking?"
She chuckled. "It was probably in beta, from the sounds of it. Not a very good place to fix a curse from."
"Oh," said Jack, then clamped his mouth shut as though trying to portray that he understood perfectly, though he honestly didn't. He could understand needing to consume something that would help to ease him into his magical mindset if he was to go up against dark magic without losing the battle to panic. That much made sense. What he didn't understand was how Mrs. Bennett was interacting with him so easily. If tea was all it took to see him, then why didn't the entire eastern hemisphere see him whenever he visited? There had to be something else.
It was still so ridiculous how his emotions were running, but as he swallowed the last of the tea in his cup, a lone tear finally escaped from the prison of his eye, ran down his cheek, and then plopped onto the table. Mrs. Bennett hadn't noticed this, as she had made sure to promptly refill Jack's cup just in case he needed more and couldn't serve himself.
Meanwhile, Jack stared at the tear in horror, unconsciously placing his hand against his cheek to feel the wet trail that ran down it. That tear should have frozen. Why hadn't it? What was happening to him?
Jack placed his wrist over his forehead in an attempt to measure his temperature, but soon gave up on that pursuit since he felt nothing out of the ordinary. And that was what startled him the most. He felt ordinary. It was hard to tell for sure, but he was pretty sure that his normal definition of ordinary didn't feel this ordinary.
"Are you feeling alright?" Mrs. Bennett glanced up from what she was doing.
Jack chuckled self consciously before waving his hands dismissively. "I-I'm sure everything's fine, but..." He then thought better of it and changed the direction he was going. "Wait, do I feel cold to you?"
"Cold?" She then pulled her sleeve back and placed her wrist on his forehead for a moment before sitting back down. "You seem fine to me, but if you're cold, I can always get you a blanket."
Jack shook his head wordlessly even as more tears sprang to his eyes unbidden. He tried to blink them back, but they wouldn't obey and preferred to all run down his cheeks and sprinkle all over the table top. The liquid in his cup loomed at him, and for the first time, he stared at it with an uneasy feeling. Was her magic really this strong?
"You-" He shakily pointed toward Mrs. Bennett as he tried to string words together. "You put all your belief into your tea."
She seemed confused for a moment before finally nodding slowly. "Of course I do. Tea is amazingly receptive to the power of belief." She paused a moment to look at him with a puzzled look on her face. "Why?"
"Be-Because." Jack placed his hands in front of his eyes as more tears ran out, but his hands didn't present much of a barricade. "You couldn't see me until I'd had a cup of tea." She slowly nodded at these words, but it was clear that she wasn't comprehending the meaning of his words.
He lowered his hands from his eyes and gazed at her through tear-stained eyes. "Do you have any idea what my deepest heart's desire is?"
She shook her head. "Now how on earth would I know that?"
Jack slowly wrapped his arms around himself, giving himself as much support as he possibly could under the circumstances. He really needed a hug, and if he was the only one who could give himself one, then so be it. "I used to be an ordinary boy. Then-Then something happened. Something very strange." He shook his head and sighed, choosing not to go into unnecessary detail about his past. "Ever since then, I've just wanted to be human again!"
He had closed his eyes, so he couldn't tell if Mrs. Bennett was reacting to his words or not. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know. Especially if she was likely to take to his words badly and reject him simply because he said he wasn't human. She had taken everything he'd said in stride thus far, but wouldn't hearing that be just a bit too much?
When he finally dared to look at her again, she was staring at him in a sort of shock. He winced. "I-I'm sorry," he said. Then he took a deep breath and looked at her directly, summoning up every bit of courage he could muster up. "Did your tea do this to me? Did it turn me human?"
She stared at him in silence for a few more moments, neither of them having any idea what to say. She then took a sip from her cup before regarding him seriously. "I don't have that kind of power. But maybe you do."
"What?!" Jack shook his head violently. "No no no, if I had the power to do this, I would have turned human years ago."
Mrs. Bennett smiled a gentle little smile. "Maybe you just needed a little push."
Jack blinked, hardly able to believe his ears. She wasn't trying to argue against what he'd said, nor was she freaking out about the possibility of him being not human. She was just accepting what was before her. Jack glanced at his cup again. What kind of magic was in this tea? If it could make humans shut up and listen once in a while, he wanted to make them all sit down and drink it.
He placed his crossed arms on the table and leaned forward toward Mrs. Bennett. "You seem awfully accepting of all of this."
"Oh, well, I..." She didn't even bother to finish what she was trying to say and instead waved off Jack's question and chuckled in lieu of the rest of the sentence.
She may have been acting like nothing all that spectacular was going on, but it was clear that something was. And Jack knew that she had been drinking the same tea. It had to have had some sort of effect on her if it had the power to affect him to this level. "If you don't mind my asking, what is your heart's desire?"
Her first reaction was to take on a solemn look to her face and rapidly glance between his face and her cup of tea as though she was trying to decide if he had sprung from the tea or something. After a moment, she finally came to a decision as she took a deep breath and said, "You wouldn't happen to be Jamie's imaginary friend, would you?"
Jack blinked, completely taken aback by her suddenly asking him such a question. But he recovered soon enough and said, "How-How did you know that?"
She let out the breath she was holding and relaxed her shoulders. It seemed she was relieved that Jack didn't think she was crazy for asking such a weird question. "It was just the only thing I could think of that makes sense," she said. "You're one of Jamie's closest friends. I couldn't see you until you drank the tea, and your deepest desire is to be human, so the tea gave you a kickstart to help you get that. Not to mention that your life was on the line with the threat of you fading away. That just sounds to me like a threat that only an imaginary friend would have. Humans don't tend to fade to death."
"Heh." Jack smirked as he looked into his cup of tea and studied his reflection once again. His face wasn't actually flushed. He could see that now. He just had more color in his skin. His hair was still white and his eyes were still blue, the permanent result of having lost all the pigment in those areas long ago he supposed, but the improved circulation from being warmer allowed his skin to have a slightly pinker tone. He could see the evidence of that in his hands as well. "I suppose humans generally don't worry about fading away, but it's a real threat for me. O-Or was." He stared at his hand as he flexed it, hardly comprehending what was going on. Was he really human or was this some kind of illusion?
Mrs. Bennett offered a shy smile. "What I really wanted deep down was some sort of validation for my inner child." She then allowed herself a light chuckle. "Somehow, I think that meeting my son's imaginary friend might count towards that." The both of them then shared a laugh over that. There was no denying it. There really was something special about this tea.
Jack then looked at Mrs. Bennett uncertainly as he gripped at the cloth covering his chest as though he was afraid of his body just vanishing on him without his notice. "Is this permanent? Will I be like this forever?"
She looked up at him, a curious look on her face. "Do you want to be?"
His mouth dropped open, a word having attempted to come out and then changing its mind and staying put inside his mouth. He honestly hadn't thought of that before. All this time, he knew he had wanted to be human again, but he'd never questioned whether he wanted to be human forever or if he just wanted to taste humanity again for a time. "I don't know," he said.
She seemed bemused by this answer. "Well then, it might just be temporary." She casually took another sip of her tea. "But you might as well enjoy it while it's happening, right?"
Jack nodded and pasted a smile on his face. She was right. Even if he was only human for the one day, he wanted to enjoy it to the best of his ability. Then maybe the desire wouldn't be so desperate anymore.
The minutes and the hours slowly ticked by as the two continued to socialize, both relishing the contact that they weren't sure they'd ever get again. He periodically caught something out of the corner of his eye that he could have sworn was looking in at them from the window, but he brushed it off. Jack experienced hunger for the first time in several centuries, and Mrs. Bennett happily whipped up some sandwiches to go with their tea. Once they had devoured those, they pulled out a board game and began to compete with each other, Jack laughing like a maniac every time he managed to frustrate Mrs. Bennett in her progress through the game. A few more tears were shed while he was having fun. He had really missed this.
Finally, the kids both came home from school and were elated to find out who was paying them a visit. Jack chose not to inform them of the curse he was still shaking off. So long as he didn't allow it to gain a foothold again, he knew it wouldn't be able to hurt him. But it meant he would be stuck with the Bennetts drinking tea until he managed to fully shake off the curse. Thankfully, Mrs. Bennett seemed perfectly okay with that, and just made some more tea every time they emptied the pot. He was a little scared to think of how much caffeine the two of them were having that day, but if he managed to solve his problem that day, then he would most likely wake up the next morning in his non-human body that wouldn't even notice the caffeine in his blood. He pitied Mrs. Bennett though. She was going to have such a withdrawal later if she kept this up, but he wasn't her dad. If she wanted to drink that much tea, it was her business.
After a long day of playing and tea drinking, everyone finally decided that going to bed would probably be a good thing. Jack simply crashed on the couch, so unused to getting tired at night that he hadn't been able to recognize how sleepy he was until he was sound asleep. Mrs. Bennett simply laughed and threw a blanket over him, then crept off to bed herself.
When his eyes fluttered open the next morning, it was to the joyous background of giggling Bennett kids getting up to some sort of mischief in the kitchen. Jack threw off the covers and eagerly leapt up to go and join them in getting into mischief. He felt much better now. He couldn't feel the curse tugging at him anymore, so he must have managed to shake off the last of it during the night. He took a deep breath and saw a puff of mist waft out of his mouth. Sure enough, he had also stopped being human during the night. It was a pity since he had really enjoyed it, but he had kind of missed having his powers too. There was just nothing like being able to pelt someone with a snowball on a whim and then fly out of their reach before they could retaliate. It was evil, but there really was nothing like it.
Jack went to where the Bennett kids and soon invested himself in trying to invent new recipes with random ingredients that the kids provided him. Occasionally he and the kids even managed to come up with something that didn't make him gag the instant he tasted it. He still refused to eat it, but hey, progress was progress. And the kids were having fun, which was the important thing.
By and by, Mrs. Bennett came down the stairs. She looked to where he had been sleeping, then traced her eyes around the room, looking for him. Her eyes finally fell to his feet, causing Jack to look down as well. She hadn't seemed to notice him standing there, but he was curious as to what had drawn her attention to his feet. As soon as he saw it, he understood. He had gotten so into the playing with the kids that he hadn't even paid attention to what his powers might want to do. He had inadvertently created quite a mass of frost surrounding where he stood.
"...Jack?" said Mrs. Bennett hesitantly. Jack sighed and waved his hand in front of her face to no avail. Jamie had explained who Jack was yesterday, but Jack had never been quite sure if she actually believed him or not. And even if she did believe, did she believe enough? He now knew just how capable she was when it came to using her own belief, but she had a much easier time using it when she used her tea magic. She must not have had enough belief left over to see him without the tea helping her out.
He stepped away from the kitchen counter, then concentrated as he began to walk toward her so as to leave a trail of frosty footprints behind him. Mrs. Bennett startled as she saw the footprints make their way up to her while their creator remained unseen. Again, she repeated the the question, "Jack?"
Jack turned to face Jamie and asked him to please tell his mother that he was indeed there, since she couldn't see him. Jamie passed on this information, to which Mrs. Bennett gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. "I'm so sorry, Jack. I can't see you anymore."
"I know you can't, dear," said Jack. "It's okay. It's harder for adults to see people like me."
Jamie translated his words and Mrs. Bennett slowly nodded in understanding, though still a bit sad. The two had enjoyed each other's company the previous day, so it was understandable that she wouldn't want to just let go of it that quickly. "Well," she said, "are you at least okay?"
"I'm fine," said Jack. "I'm all back to normal." He held up his hands in front of her face as though he wanted to show her something, though he knew she wouldn't see it. "Look Ma, no curse!"
Jamie relayed this as best he could, and she reacted with a light chuckle. "I'm glad your curse is gone. I would hate for Jamie to lose one of his dearest friends." She then sighed. "I'm sorry I don't have enough power to keep you human like you wanted though."
Jack reached to place his hand on her shoulder, then thought better of it and pulled his hand back before it made contact. Even though she accepted that he existed, he doubted that she had enough belief to let him be tangible to her. He didn't care to find out firsthand. "It's okay," he said. "You gave me exactly what I needed. All I needed was a taste of humanity. Nothing more."
Jamie then started laughing after he translated this and he said, "Do you mean a taste of humaniTea? Get it? There's tea in it."
Jack then snorted and ruffled Jamie's hair. "Why must I be surrounded by terrible punsters, huh?"
While Jamie frantically tried to straighten out his hair, Jack went to retrieve his staff. "I've got some things that need to get done, but I should be back in Burgess within a few days." He then looked at Jamie and then nodded toward Jamie's mother. "And let your mother know that if she just so happens to make her special tea again when I come back to visit, and I just so happen to drink it, it may just so happen that I become visible to her again so that I can hang out with the whole family again."
Jamie eagerly passed this information on to his mom, who then responded with, "Alright, Jack, when you come back to town, let me know somehow and I'll make up another batch of tea for you." She paused a moment, and then said, "Do you want the same tea, or would you like me to create a new blend for you since it seems your desire to be human has been fulfilled?"
Jack scratched his head. He hadn't thought of that, but she had a point. If he didn't feel such a strong need to be human anymore, then how would it make him visible when that was no longer his heart's deepest desire? He laughed. "Just do whatever you think will make me visible to you. I don't have to be human."
Jamie relayed this, then jumped up and down and said, "Ooh! Ooh! You should call the first tea HumaniTea, and then the new one should be called VisibiliTea!"
Mrs. Bennett rolled her eyes while Jack groaned. "Why are you so insistent on the tea puns, Jamie?"
Jamie shrugged. "Because they're fun?"
Jack simply flicked Jamie's nose, laughed as the boy reacted to having his nose get nipped by the sudden chill of Jack's fingers, and then he took off to tend to other things.
When he had just barely gotten out of the house, Tooth and Sandy caught up with him. "So, it looks like you've managed to shake off your curse, Jack!" said Tooth. "Congratulations!"
Jack raised an eyebrow as he watched the two of them. "How long have you two been spying on me?"
"Since you were about halfway through your second cup." Tooth laughed awkwardly. "We came back to find you as soon as we could, and Sandy told me about that little stunt he pulled with sending that dream to Mrs. Bennett, so we came right to the Bennett house to see if you'd gone there as he thought you would. It seems he knows you better than I thought."
Meanwhile, Sandy proudly crossed his arms and nodded with a very knowing grin. Were that boastful gesture to come from Jamie, Jack would have started ruffling his hair by then. But Jack wasn't too keen on risking himself getting hit with a ball of dreamsand in retaliation, so he just laughed.
"Why didn't you guys say anything if you came back so soon?"
"Because," said Tooth as she smoothed some of her feathers away from her face, "we didn't want to distract you. Mrs. Bennett was taking good care of you and we didn't want to make that more difficult for either of you."
Jack smirked at that, thinking that to be a silly excuse, but appreciating the gesture all the same. "Thanks." He then remembered something else. "Oh, and sorry for yesterday."
Tooth and Sandy both waved him off like it was no big deal. "Don't worry about it, Jack. I'm not sure I would have managed to stay even that level headed if that had happened to me." Sandy then pointed to Tooth and started to demonstrate silent mocking laughter. Judging by the glare on Tooth's face after seeing that, Jack suspected that a certain Dream Guardian was going to get clobbered later.
Jack was once again about to leave to get back to his winter duties when Tooth grabbed him by the shoulder. "Jack, be careful. Pitch is still out there, and he'll be furious when he realizes his Erasure spell didn't work."
"I'll be careful," said Jack.
Tooth then took something and placed it in Jack's hand. A snowglobe. "North said to give this to you, just in case you ever encountered another emergency like that."
"He's... He's letting me have this?" Jack looked from the snowglobe to the other Guardians until they nodded in confirmation, and then he turned back to the snowglobe and started to cackle. "Oh, the things I could do with this!" He then shoved it in his hoodie pocket and took off into the air.
"Jack!" shouted Tooth after him. "Don't use it to get yourself onto the naughty list!"
Jack simply laughed and shouted back, "Tell him thanks for me!" before he sped off to places unknown.
He enjoyed traveling most places the slow way, so it was a while before he got around to using the snowglobe to travel anywhere. Instead, he just periodically pulled it out of his pocket to look at it, then smiled and put it back in his pocket for safe keeping. It wasn't what he could use it for that he liked so much, but rather what it meant to him. It wasn't just a portal between different parts of the world. It was a physical representation that he had people out there who were looking out for him. Who cared for his well being. To make sure he would always be able to show his face around them again, no matter how annoying he had been the past 900 times he had shown up.
Mrs. Bennett's tea had taught him a lot more than he had thought at first. Whether he was human or not wasn't important. What mattered was who he loved and cared for, and who loved and cared for him back. What mattered most was the connection he was able to forge with other people, and have the knowing that even if he could only spend a short time with them, that he'd left a lasting enough impression that they would always be glad that he'd crossed their path. These feelings were perhaps the very essence of what being human was. Becoming human for a day had certainly taught him how vital these feelings were, at the very least.
Perhaps, in some strange way, he was still human after all, and he forever would be.
In case anyone wants to know, I'm an American tea fanatic, and I do find it quite frustrating how hard it is to find good tea in America. Though I manage well enough because I know where to look. (And by the way, if any of you dare to suggest that Jack should have gotten tea at McDonald's or anything similar, be prepared to get slapped. That is NOT tea!)
But yes, for those of you who don't know it because you don't drink it, tea really does have that sort of magical and spiritual vibe. (I confirmed with my British tea fanatic friend just to be doubly sure that it wasn't just me. It's not.) It's been used in rituals and religious practices for millennia, and for good reason. It really does enhance your spiritual awareness. And that amino acid, L-theanine, is particularly awesome! It seriously only naturally occurs in tea. No other plant in the world has that. Just tea.
But I must admit, I have not actually tried that blend I mentioned in this fic. I want to, but I don't have all the ingredients. (Huckleberries are expensiiiiiiive.) I paged through a book on magical qualities of herbs and selected an array of them that I thought would believably embody a magical tea to grant one's heart's desire. And now I'm curious to actually try drinking it, haha.
Anyway, tea lesson over. (Though if anyone wants to talk about tea, I'm ALWAYS happy to. You have no idea.) Thanks for reading this fanfic. I really appreciate it! Let me know your thoughts. I would really like to hear from you! :)