Summary: Jack is a thinker. No, really. He's thought about why the Man in the Moon made Pitch.

Fears Like Old Friends

by Rachelle_Lo

Jack Frost is a thinker.

No, really.

He thinks too much, honestly. His thoughts are as spontaneous as a snow day in June. They burst out of him like the frost-leaves growing in his footsteps, burst like flurries of snow. Combustion and chaos whirl in his head: he is Mischief and Fun.

I was born in water in the middle of winter, he thinks. Winter, check. I'm a force of nature, not a holiday icon like North or Tooth or Bunnymund. So...that's why they could remember their first lives and I can't.

"Right," he says aloud, but he doesn't convince himself.

To distract himself, he does a suicide dive on the wind current. He's heading over to the Western Hemisphere; he's finished up winter over in the East. When he got the Guardian job, suddenly his duty exploded.

"You have to spread joy and goodness and fun all over the world, Jack, not just your little town!" he mimics the other Guardians. "Oh, dear, why on earth would you think you know Fun better than us, Jack? Your brain's iced over, mate! You're being a teensy-weensy bit selfish, sweetie. Oh-ho-ho, Jack, my boy, you remember you hold standing record on Naughty list! You have duty! Redeem yourself!"

He huffed. "Yeah, okay. I'm gonna do whatever I want, like I always do."

And Jack Frost did what Jack Frost does. Whatever he wants.

If I was born in cold, was Pitch born in dark? The thought comes suddenly.

The thought of Pitch stands his white hair on end. (Well, everything does that.)

What an awful way to go. 'Course, I drowned, and he's a murderous jerk, so no sympathy here... "Okay, Jack what are you doing? Thinking again?" he groans. Jack snaps off an icicle and crunches it in his little teeth. "Snowballs to make, people to prank, noses to nip...you've got a full day ahead, mate!"

He groans again at his word choice. "Now I'm channeling work ethic..."

I was created to be a Guardian and preserve Fun in the world. Why would the Man in the Moon make Pitch if he doesn't help children at all?

It's a quiet day; Jack doesn't mind thinking. He's snuck into North's workshop and has tucked himself in a little corner in the roof so the yetis can't see him. He could have come through the front door, but where's the fun in that? Old habits die hard.

Pitch is nightmares and fear. That's more the adult world. He shouldn't be concerned with children.

All Pitch had wanted was to be seen and recognized. (Like Jack.) Only children have the room to believe in something new; it makes sense that Pitch would be through with adults and concentrate on children. But his methods had been skewed.

Moon, why would you let Pitch terrify children? Why would you create him as Fear embodied and set him loose without a purpose?

"Like you did me," Jack murmured.

There was a window above him he can see out of. "Okay, that wasn't fair. You did make me a Guardian and stuff. Sorry."

But it did kind of take three hundred years.

How long has Pitch been waiting?

"Again, my friend?" Jack sighs. His fellow Guardians look at him in surprise, their upheld weapons dropping slightly.

Pitch is here, countless years later, nearly a century. He has more Nightmares, more horses, snakes and dragons and all the fears in the night. He wants revenge; he wants recognition.

"You're not doing your job," Jack says, stepping forward. He looks no older, but he feels like an ancient statute: a Guardian of children. "You're the Boogeyman."

"Ah, but I'm not, Jack," Pitch says smoothly, voice resonant and incessantly creeping. "I'm merely a faded memory of what I once was, much like you are merely a fading echo of their glory; their pet mascot."

"What is your job, Pitch?" Jack ignores the feeble jibes. "Tell me what your job is."

"I am fear!" Pitch hisses.

"Yes!" Jack says sharply. "And what does fear do?" He doesn't let Pitch answer; he's probably pushed him too far. "Fear teaches! You are the one all children must overcome! You warn children, you give them obstacles to climb and become great." Jack hefts his staff and points. "Pitch, you work together with us, the Guardians. You're the lesson, and we're the reward. And when you've done your job, you leave! What have you been doing all this time? You've been a bully, not a teacher! Pitch, you have a purpose."

The Nightmare Feeder stumbles back like Jack has struck him. "You—"

"Send them away, Pitch," Jack says quietly, gesturing to the Nightmares around them. "To kids scared of their first day of school, or scared of the dark, or whatever, but make it so that when they overcome you, the fears are like old friends. Those kids can tell their kids 'I used to be afraid of that, too, but you know what? I got over it, and you can too.' That's why the Man made you, Pitch."

With a scream from children's night terrors, Pitch swirls in black sand and vanishes. The horses, snakes, and beasts slither and slide away.

The other Guardians stare at Jack.

"Well done, Jack!" North sweeps Jack up in a far too enthusiastic embrace, prompting a wheezed groan from Jack. "We have no fight!"

"Put me down, you behemoth," Jack coughs, trying not to laugh since his ribs can't take any more pressure.

"Jack, how did on earth did you know what to say?" Tooth flitters.

Jack grins and tries hard to make it sound like a joke. "Yeah, well—I think sometimes."

fin