A/N: Posting this on a whim. I think I have this plot figured out. I'm sort of procrastinating on posting for my other stories too, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully this will get my creative juices flowing.

Selfish Heart: Chapter 1

"Easter is in exactly 57 days and you're bugging me about Cupid?"

Jack gave a very long, very exasperated sigh. After the events of dealing with Pitch last year (Bunny called it "The Nightmare War", but Jack thought he was just being dramatic), he and the disgruntled kangaroo were getting along better than before. They hadn't gotten to the point of mutual cuddliness though, where Jack could get away with scratching behind his ears and get away with it without getting clubbed with a boomerang that hurt more than it looked, but it was nice to have somewhere to hang every once and a while. Jack was constantly being reminded that he was sort of homeless; and having a roommate wasn't all that bad, not if you avoided all of the furniture the other one sat in, to better avoid all of the shedding. But now North was getting on Jack to do something about a rogue character who had been getting a little out of hand lately, and seeing as this was Jack's very first mission, he decided that he could get all of the help he could get.

If he could get any, that is.

"Th-that's more than two months away!" Jack said, picking up his pace as he followed the overgrown house pet around the table where he kept his best maps and markers. "And Valentine's Day is next week, Bunny! We need to confront this guy before he messes up another Valentine's day!"

"That's less than two months away, Frost," Bunny grumbled, giving him a look. "Or did you forget your months?"

Jack paused while he counted the days of the months in his head. "Wait, February isn't the month with 31 days in it?"

"No."

"What about March? Wait, Easter is on March this year, right?"

"Despite your laudatory memory skills, Frost, I don't have time for this," Bunny grumbled. Jack glowered, watching him move into the next room. It wasn't his fault that he didn't stare at a calendar everyday, glaring at each month every morning when he woke up. He didn't work like that. All he ever needed to do each day was create as much fun and mischief as he could until Bunny kicked him out of the picture come springtime. "Valentine's day is for –for teens! For adults! Not children!"

"But I need to do this," Jack pressed on, following Bunny's hoppy little lead.

His Burrow was getting humid with heat; it had something to do with the hundreds of stoves that were constantly boiling and experimenting with eggs in the next room, Jack thought. He really wished the failed magic trick would open a door every once and a while; his house was starting to smell like rotten egg salad sandwiches. Bunny had turned into another hole-room with various books on shelves and a desk with a small little painter's easel on top of it. There was a little palette of paints next to the artist's corner; Jack followed the Guardian in, and closed the door behind him. It was only here, Jack thought, that they could hope to escape the stench of egg.

"Don't blame me for this, Frost." Bunny had plopped in front of the easel now, dipping a nearby paint brush in a waiting bowl of watercolor. "North assigned you the task of breaking Cupid's heartstrings a long time ago—no pun intended. If you forgot, then that's not my problem."

Jack simpered. "I just . . . lost track of time, is all," Jack told him.

"Lost track of time, for the past three months?"

Jack muttered an affirmation, trying to think of another way to get the rabbit to see sense. He really had lost track of time for the past two months—and then, after that, he'd procrastinated on confronting the winged guy until he could procrastinate no longer. Now North was bearing down on him more than ever, and every so often Jack would wake up from nightmares of the Russian glaring at him, frowning and eyes filled with unfulfilled expectation. He didn't want to disappoint the guy. He had to find a way to get a hold of Cupid, and fast.

"Come on . . ." Jack tried again. "I'll . . . I'll stop the snow for an extra week this spring! I'll make sure you have a nice and grassy Easter this time of year!"

"No," Bunny grumbled. "I don't dobribing."

"Yeah, but you do gamble," Jack informed him. "Remember when you and North made that bet in the 1700s-!"

Bunny rounded on him in horror. "Wh-who told you about that?" He shook his head rapidly, his big bunny ears flapping all over. It was kinda cute, actually-especially once you got past the stark eyes brows and deep Australian accent. "Nevermind about that! I'm still not helping you, Jack! This is your mess, and you can get your own butt out of it!"

"But North, he's counting on me to handle this, before it gets too out of hand, and . . . " Jack stopped talking. It was obvious that he wasn't listening, and Jack knew he needed to say something else to regain his attention again. Bunnymund had put to canvas a burst of inspiration, and had painted a wonderful egg in designs of blues, golds, and greens. Jack supposed it was nice, but lately he'd found that he'd had enough of eggs for an entire lifetime. But . . . "Hey, that's pretty nice. I've been thinking about starting to get into a hobby sometime."

"Really? You want me to show you how to paint?" Bunnymund's eyes looked at him with feigned surprise. " Because, you know, it's actually a great stress reliever, for when annoying teenagers keep breathing down my neck and ruining my plans for Easter!"

"Geez, geez, okay! I get the hint, alright!" Jack said, putting up his hands in defense. "Though would it be such a stretch to pretend like I was actually taking an interest in your adorably quaint therapeutic hobby?

Bunny started rubbing at his temples with two fingers. He grumbled before saying, "What could you possibly need help with, anyway? All you need to do is find the guy and talk to him anyway, right?"

"Yeah . . . it would help some if I knew where the guy lived."

Aster facepalmed.

"Does that mean you know where he lives?" Jack said with burgeoning excitement.

Bunnymund frowned. "I don't, but Tooth does."

"Tooth? Why would she know?"

"Because, Cupid is her brother."

Frost's hopes sang to an unimaginable low. He looked at Aster, who had turned in his stool to look at him inquisitively, then at the painting itself, and then at what looked like a children's book. Its cover was filled with pictures of pastel colors and all types of furry animals. Does Aster actually learn from this childish crap? Jack wondered inanely.

"Jack,"Aster said for what may have been the upteenth time. "Jack, do you hear me?"

"Pretending not to."

"You're going to have to confront the lady sometime. You did break her heart."

"I don't—doesn't Sandy know?" Jack asked. He still was staring at the brightly colored children's book on Bunny's desk, but he could feel him staring at him, probably with that oh-so-righteous, disapproving gaze of his. If he confronted her, it would be awkward and uncomfortable in the extreme, but Jack imagined that this would only be the beginning of such situations in the next few days. "He knows a lot of stuff. He should know something like that, right?"

"I doubt it. Cupid is a self-concerned hermit who barely gets out himself," Aster said casually, moving his hand in very broad, sweeping strokes. He continued, "The only person he's revealed himself in the past years is his sister, and that I know from experience."

"And from experience, did you happen to find out where Cupid lived?"

"No," Aster grunted, reaching down to switch paintbrushes. "It wasn't the best time to ask."

"Well, it's not going to be the best time for me to ask if I go to see her, either," Jack looked at Bunny reluctantly, his glaring bunny eyes on him. "What?"

"Were you really going to ignore her for the rest of the year?" Aster questioned. "She's got tabs on you."

"I know, I know—"

"And next week is Valentine's Day."

Jack's shoulders slumped a little. "Yeah. You think Guardians themselves wouldn't celebrate their own holidays, or even Holidays at all."

"Guardians celebrate their own holidays all the time."

"Yeah, I know . . . I just . . . I don't think I . . . ever really liked her as much as she thought I did." Jack crossed his arms, feeling heavier than when he had entered Bunny's Burrow just minutes earlier. "She came onto me more than I did her . . . and seeing her around that crazy schedule of hers . . . it was driving me crazy. I mean, was I supposed to be okay with her bringing her work to our dates? She was always babbling about teeth, going a million miles an hour, and I just. . . couldn't keep up with her. I just . . . I just hope I made her realize that we were two completely different people before breaking it off with her."

Bunny nodded sagely, though he still looked pretty incriminating with his arms crossed like that. Jack couldn't believe that he'd just spilled the details on why he thought his brief time with Tooth Fairy hadn't worked out for him—he supposed it was just something that he'd been thinking about, off and on again, for longer than he'd like to admit.

(Maybe he did still have feelings for her, after all.)

"Go talk to her," Bunny told him. "And figure out if you still have feelings for the lady. She deserves that much."

Jack nodded, standing up as he went. "Yeah . . . I think I will." But he wasn't buying her any lame-ass Valentine's card. "And Aster?"

Bunny's eyes narrowed.

"The paint on your picture is dripping. It doesn't look like it's going to last . . ."

Aster turned to the canvas with growing fury. "FROST! I swear, you little son of a snowflake—"

Jack ran out of the room, a grin lighting up his face, more ready than Bunny to be out of that Warren. But he didn't think where he was headed wasn't much better.

Awkwardness ahead.

Jack got to Tooth's Sanctuary via one of North's Portal Snowglobes. He'd grabbed a few during his last visit to the North Pole, and he didn't think that he'd mind all THAT much that he'd taken one of them.

In any case, North knew him pretty well. North had been mentoring Jack a lot in the past few months, and though Jack often pretended like his sessions were boring him to sleep, without his help, he'd probably be lost as a Guardian. It was harder than it looked, and a lot more work than just hanging out with kids all day long. To say the least, there was a lot that North let Jack get away with, a relationship that mostly reminded Jack of one that would manifest itself between a father and son. But, seeing as North looked nothing like Jack, and the fact that North was more overbearing than he would've preferred, Jack liked to think of their relationship more as one that developed like one between a boy and his very fond, very wizened and very Russian, uncle.

Jack hoped that he could mend the relationship that he'd broken between he and Tooth. He shared a mutual liking and respect towards all of his Guardian friends, and, above all of that, he didn't want to suffer through another uncomfortable Christmas dinner like the one that they'd suffered through the year before.

So. He was going to make the best of this situation as possible.

But right when he stepped on the other side of Tooth's golden gates atop of her very impressive mountain, he knew that nothing between them would be the same.

Just being there seemed to reek of broken promises and situations that had spiraled out of his control. This was odd in itself, since he was quite fond of things that were beyond his control, and liked the challenge of fixing them on habit of improvisation. But with Tooth . . . that had never worked out. She was all "schedules and deadlines" and there was a part of him that just couldn't will himself to change to fit her needs. Being with her just gave him the feeling of restlessness, of a situation that he couldn't control, of a chaos and a feeling of . . . of helplessness.

Jack sighed.

A cluster of Baby Teeth plagued him, crowding around him as the great gates of Tooth's palace began to open. They whizzed about him furiously, right in his face, the angriest Jack had ever seen them.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Jack said, waving around his arms in defense. "What did I ever do to you guys?"

That wasn't quite the right question, though, since Jack knew exactly why they were so agitated around him. As it always was, Toothiana's Baby Teeth reacted much the same way she did. They were an extension of her, in more ways than simple ability; thinking and sometimes feeling the things that she did when the occasion arose. Jack remembered how, in the beginning, they swooned and sighed when Tooth and Jack began to date. Now they reacted as she would if she was there; heartbroken and bitter, the Baby Teeth lashed out with uncontrolled animosity towards him.

"Okay, this isn't fixing anything!" Jack said as his movements became more and more restricted. Before the Baby Teeth could react, he was up in the air. A swift jerk with his crook was really all it took for the winter winds to come to his aid; soon he was looking down at the swarm of Teeth who had decided to attack first and ask questions later. He wished he could've figured out another way to deal with them, but he knew that they weren't his main problem. To calm them down he would need to go to the source.

"Tooth!" Jack bellowed, soaring over mountain peaks whose bases where obscured by huge fluffy clouds. He scoured the area, but the actual building where Tooth dwelt in was nowhere to be found. "Tooth, where are you?"

"What could you possibly want, Jack?" Her Baby Teeth probably got a hold of her quicker than they could keep up with him. Toothiana was there in an instant, her multicolored wings lifting her up into the air with him. Her pixie-like face was hard, her lips pressed into a frown, but Jack knew better than to judge her solely on these facial features. Her bright primrose eyes were bright with hurt, longing to hear some sort of explanation.

Jack never wanted any of this. As a matter of fact, he was pretty averse to any conversation that didn't include playful bantering or laughter. He didn't do serious talks.

"Tooth—hey."

Toothiana crossed her arms in front of her. "I don't know why my Baby Teeth opened the gates for you if all you came up here to say was hi."

Jack grimaced. Tooth was difficult to talk to when she was mad. "Tooth, I don't know what else to tell you. I'm sorry about what happened between us. If you want, I could say that it wasn't you, but me, since that usually helps—"

"That never helps things, Jack!" Tooth exclaimed. "Because when a guy says that, what they're actually saying is that it's the girl with the issue!"

"Oh. Really?" Jack said, utterly clueless. "I didn't mean it like that." Jack struggled to find some more words to say to calm her down. He began to think furiously. He knew everything he wanted to say to her could probably he handled better if they weren't wasting their energy flying up in the air—Jack opted to find a more comfortable place to talk, one preferably on the ground.

Toothiana obliged, telling him that they could talk in the chamber where she kept all of her teeth. She flew away before Jack could say his opinion about where they should talk, and he rushed to keep up with her.

Toothiana stared at Jack, and Jack stared at anyplace in the room that wasn't dominated by her.

They were standing up, so it was hard. Upon entering, Jack had settled himself in a large comfy chair that dominated one corner of the room, but stood up when he realized that Tooth wasn't going to sit down herself.

It was obviously up to him to launch the first words of conversation. He knew all of the things that he couldn't say—the fact that he absolutely couldn't stand being around her, that she drove him up the wall, that she should forget what happened between them so that she could tell him where the heck her brother lived so the winged pest wouldn't cause another February fiasco like the one last year.

But because Jack was bad at explaining himself, and also a complete ditz in relationships, he suddenly found himself at a loss for words, and decided to stuck it with the last one.

Tooth slapped him.

Jack had never been slapped before. But in his defense, that's actually exactly why he came to see her.

It hurt a lot more than the T.V. shows let on.

"Um, ow."

"I let you come to me, after months of avoiding me, and the first thing you can think of doing is insulting my brother?"

Jack patted at his cheek gingerly. "Uh….yeah?"

Tooth gave him a deprecating look, before crossing her arms and floating away.

"W-wait!" Jack said before she could leave the room. "That came out wrong, okay? I didn't mean what I said. Your brother isn't really some pest."

"Is that right?" Tooth spat, still not facing him. "Then what is he?"

Jack gave a heavy sigh. "I don't know! He never shows his face. At least, to us. And when he does, he's so freaking slippery. He won't let anyone try and pin him down."

"Huh. That's kind of funny that you'd make that observation," Tooth said. "You and he actually sound a lot alike."

Jack pressed his hands through his hair in frustration. He just couldn't win!

"Look, Tooth, I didn't mean to insult him like that. I just need to know where he is."

"Why, so you can stop him?" Toothiana whisked around then, her eyes glowing like twin amethysts. "Put an end to him? Take him down after what happened last February?"

Jack hesitated.

"Well, I won't let you do it," Toothiana said pointedly. Her finger wavered in his face, shaking dictatorially. "He's still my brother."

"Tooth," Jack said, his voice level. He had to make her see his cause. "You can't really think that, can you?"

The Tooth Fairy frowned. Jack wondered, in her silence, what she could be thinking about. Was she recalling the events of last year, when Cupid had taken upon himself to nearly stir on a third world war? Or was she remembering different things, moments when they had been younger? Jack didn't know much about Toothiana's past, but he sort of wondered if Cupid's distance was a thing that had come about because of his relationship with Tooth. Then Jack frowned. But that didn't really make any sense, did it? Toothiana- she was the most heartfelt Guardian out there!

Ahem. That is, before Jack broke her heart . . .

But suddenly Jack wasn't so sure. I mean, this wasn't just her brother-this was her twin. Who knows if their distance was a result of something that Tooth did? He and her may be more alike than Jack may realize . . .

Tooth gathered herself. She spoke calmly and diplomatically, a mask of her usual self. "What happened last year was bad, yes. But it doesn't mean that he's a threat. He's stayed out of the way for a good 200 years. He may not do anything this year."

Jack looked to the ceiling. "Tooth, I don't know. He's only been getting worse. Last year- someone got so obsessed over not being able to date that prime minster's daughter that they nearly killed him over it. He drives people into insanity!"

"I know what he does, Jack," Toothiana insisted. "But I can't let you hurt him!"

Jack couldn't make himself push his point further. Toothiana looked at him with eyes filled with desperation. He looked down. Of course she'd want to protect her brother from any harm. Despite whatever disagreements they'd come to, they still looked after each other.

But he couldn't let something as big as what had happened last year happen again.

"Okay," he said. "I'm not going to try and take him down, really. I just need to find him, and talk to him. But I can't do that without your help."

Toothiana pursed her lips, her gaze weighty. "You have to promise me," she said.

Jack nodded at once. "Of course. Yes. I promise. I'm just going to talk to him, see if I can reason with him."

Toothiana didn't respond. He saw the mistrust that lingered in her eyes, left over no doubt from that last time she had put her trust in him.

Just as suddenly, though, she broke contact. "Okay," she said, partly to herself. "Follow me."

She was a lot more confrontational and assertive now than what Jack had experienced when they had been dating. He followed her into the room adjacent, the hallway considerably more dark and more small than the room that they had left. Jack figured that every room in Tooth's house was filled with light from the open-air Sanctuary, but then he saw he was wrong. Eventually Tooth turned into a room whose bright yellow-glow was completely non-existent; curtain covering what would've the huge arch window that would've overlooked the entire room, and filled it with the light that was missing from it. Jack surveyed the rest of the place as Tooth headed towards one of the looming wooden shelves standing at the wall opposite. The room was messier than what Jack was used to seeing any of Tooth's apartments being; golden artifacts and ancient relics strewed the floor without rhyme or reason to its placement. Jack crossed the room to peer inside the drawer Tooth had just opened; inside, lay many more odds and ends of instruments that Jack couldn't place a name to. She rummaged through the drawer, which was deep and filled to the brim; Jack turned around to gaze upon the rest of the room's contents for an instant, his eyes landing on the room's only table. There were things on there that Jack could actually identify; a balance, broken and its left side tilting on one side wrongly; and a statue, whose golden base held a marble figure with wings. Its miniature body was arched in a graceful, yet menacing stance; in its hands he held a bow, and his body was taunt, his every muscle set to release the arrow to release.

Jack cocked his head to one side. The likeness of the angel was too detailed to not be a replica of someone who was actually real. It was close enough to Jack that he could admire it from the distance that he stood at. He took a stab and guessed that this must be what Cupid looked like.

But maybe the word admire wasn't the right one to describe what Jack felt as he looked at the statue. Standing behind Tooth, he gazed at it with a sort of unsettling awe. Its eyes were set and determined; its eyebrows were arched about its face in an expression that was both superior and mischievous. A glimmer of a smirk framed his face, hidden behind the weapon he held at the ready. And his bow was pointed directly at Jack's chest.

"Here," Tooth said, procuring from the chest's contents a small round thing. She handed it to Jack, its shiny surface bigger than the palm of her hand. Jack took it, and their hands brushed slightly. But Jack didn't feel the electric shock of love that he had felt when Tooth had first pressed her hand in his with love, which confused him. If Jack wasn't destined to do this with Tooth, and if he wasn't destined to love her again, then why was Cupid directing his arrow at him?

Jack pressed on the knob at the top of the metal object. It opened, revealing itself to be a compass of some kind. It spun in a circle, never settling in one single direction.

"Why is it spinning like this?" Jack asked.

"It's because I live at the edge of the world," Tooth informed him. "In the West."

Jack frowned. "Okay, I know I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I'm pretty sure that the world is round, not flat. There's-there's no such thing as the edge of the world!"

"Don't try and explain it; it doesn't make sense to me, either. All I know is where I live. North lives in the Northern most part of the world, and Bunny lives in the Eastern most part."

"And what about Sandy?"

"I'm not so sure about Sandy," she said, her lips pulled down in a gesture of uncertainty. "I feel like he lives everywhere. Or somewhere in France." Tooth shook her head. "Nevermind about that. Take this. It'll direct you where you need to go. Once you depart from my Sanctuary, then the compass will point you due North. Don't go that way. Go South. That's where Cupid lives. But if you find yourself in Antarctica, you've gone too far."

"Um . . . okay?"

"When the compass starts going crazy, you'll know where Cupid's labyrinth is. Don't try and figure out where his Citadel is. You'll never find it. You'll need to go through his Labyrinth first."

"Sounds good." Jack looked down at his former girlfriend. Tooth was always flying, her wings always making the constant sound of humming birds made, but she didn't fly now. Her eyebrows were pulled down in concern, and she held herself in a somewhat disconcerted fashion.

"Hey, Tooth," Jack said gently—because he could be gentle, if he needed to—"I'll get him to see reason, alright?"

Tooth looked up at him doubtfully. "There's a reason that Cupid isn't a Guardian like us."

"That shouldn't mean anything," Jack said in what he thought would be a helpful manner. "I mean, I was alive for almost 300 years before I became one."

"This is different, though." Tooth looked at him. "You didn't become a Guardian right away because you were selfish, misunderstood, and separated from the world."

"There's nothing wrong with being independent," Jack said, his voice guarded. "I didn't think anybody wanted me, and so I figured I didn't need them, either."

"You'll find that you and Cupid have similar personality traits, then. The only thing is, Cupid isn't misunderstood. He's a damned soul, and perverts the power that he was given."

Jack was taken aback. "He's really like that, then? You're sure?"

Tooth narrowed her eyes at him. "Of course I'm sure. We're twins. I knew the Man of the Moon was wrong to choose my brother from the start. Nobody believed me though, and he never listened." Her eyebrows quirked up then, a new thought coming to mind. "That information should help some, right? Maybe you'll connect with him as much as you connected with Pitch."

"Tooth—as terrible as your opinion of me right now may be—I'm not a horrible person. I defeated Pitch, not to give myself satisfaction, but to help all of you guys." Jack looked down. "I still care for you, Tooth. Just . . . not in that way."

The look she gave him was a sour one. With it, Jack realized just how much he changed her with one, rash decision made in one day of his life. It was the type of decision, he realized, that messed you up forever, causing not just you harm-but everyone around you harm as well.

"Love isn't rational," she told him. "It defies logic, and happens without our wanting it. When you confront my brother, he won't want to listen to you. He doesn't listen to anyone. He will think he is better than you, because he's powerful, more powerful than anybody. Don't forget that, Jack."

After that, an uncomfortable sort of silence descended upon them both. Jack didn't like uncomfortable silences. He had said what he'd come to say, and more than that, besides. Tooth had helped him, even though she'd had every reason not to.

Jack decided to go off on that. "Listen, Tooth—" Jack said, and then, realizing that sounded too formal, he tried again, "Thanks for—" But he was cut off by Tooth dismissing herself from the conversation first. She turned around and flew out the room, gossamer wings lifting her and taking her far; far from him.

A/N: Even though this fiction takes place near/during Valentine's day, there is no way I'll finishing it until then. I expect this fic to be . . . maybe about seven or eight chapters?

Anyway. Please review!