An original story by kiancalling, picked up starting at chapter three (first two chapters are published together here) by heidemao1295. Originally published under the title "The Things We Forget". Thanks for reading, please don't forget to review!
Chapter 1
Warning: I have never read the books; therefore, this is based entirely on what I know from the film and some interpretations from fanfictions I have read.
November
Jamie Bennett had forgotten.
It wasn't a shock, not really, and, to the kid's credit, he did remember for a few years longer than his friends. But high school is rough and draining, for the valedictorians and slackers alike, neither of which Jamie was, in any case. Even the moderate achievers who pass through their school years unremarkably and un-extraordinarily may not realize how quickly they grow up in those four years, but almost everyone does. At the very least, they're forced to stop being kids.
Jamie forgot the other Guardians first, Bunny and Sandy, Tooth and North – though not necessarily in that order – and he hardly even realized it when the stories he told Sophie as she stuck a tooth under her pillow became tall tales and not fun facts.
But for the longest time Jamie could always see Jack Frost, even if, more often than not, he couldn't remember the perpetual kid's name right off. He mistook Jack a couple times for a kid in his geometry class who swung by looking for homework help – why the kid preferred the second story window to the front door he was never quite sure, but the late-night knock on the glass panes felt normal, natural, and so Jamie wasn't too bothered by it.
The most distressing moment for Jack was when he knocked on that window and no one answered.
It was late into the night – Jack had been busy dusting all of southern New England with the first snowfall and a bit of ice, as would be expected for the time of year – and so a knock on Jamie Bennett's window should have been answered by a sleepy kid turned groggy teenager.
Except, on this particular night, it wasn't.
Maybe Jamie really had forgotten now, Jack reasoned, trying to peer in and discern whether there was a sure form giving shape to the crumpled comforter. Jack had been gone for six months, after all. And he'd been so worried leaving this time to go do winter in the southern hemisphere. He'd had a terrible feeling, one that had never really left the deep pit of his gut. Now, it was just migrating back to the shallow end. North told him not to worry, that as a Guardian from the North Pole, he'd keep watch over all the northerners, Jamie Bennett extra included. And besides, North reminded Jack Frost, winter was his responsibility as a Guardian. "All people must be reminded of vhat fun is, Jack. Even you."
But Jack was cursing himself repeatedly as he flew up above Burgess that night. He was looking along all the streets absently, though he wasn't even sure Jamie hadn't been in bed, He was just anxious, the gnawing in his gut growing, because Jamie Bennett had been forgetting him and Jack Frost couldn't bear to think that he had, likewise, forgotten Jamie.
Jack didn't quite understand, yet, that in the great infinity of time, people get forgotten.
December, four years later
Jack shook his head, frost coming off the tips of his slightly-too-long hair and glistening in the moonlight as it fell to the ground below with a whisper.
"No? Whaddya mean, no?" Bunny scolded, looking up at an unmoved Jack. "This is your season, mate. Get on the snowstorms."
"Eh, I don't know," Jack replied. He leaned back, falling around the tree branch by his knees, before straightening his legs and hitting the ground on his feet. In another graceful move, his staff was planted firmly beside him, and he leaned against it, giving Bunny and company a lazy look. "I'm just not - nah, it's more like... it just doesn't feel like winter, kangaroo."
"Doesn't feel like vinter? Jack, Christmas was two days ago. It is very vinter!" North cut in, keeping Bunny, red in the face furious, from jumping Jack Frost.
Jack let out a sigh. "Sorry to break it to you, big man, but Christmas doesn't make it winter. I mean, you've seen those crazy Australians every year, right? They don't need snow to have a jolly old time."
"Ay, watch it! You're on thin ice, mate," Bunny growled. Jack huffed again.
"Been there," he said. "Done that."
The other Guardians fell eerily silent, obviously uncomfortable. Sandy rubbed his neck and, after another few moments, Tooth spoke up.
"Look, Jack, we know that weather is supposed to be unpredictable and all, but maybe just an inch? For us? Or at least, you know, give New England one or two days below 65 Fahrenheit before New Year's Eve? If not for us," Tooth looked away from Jack, "then for Jamie, maybe?"
No one in the intervention dared breath. Bold of her, Bunny thought, eying Tooth with curiously new respect. Not—not that he hadn't respected her before, of course, he hurriedly amended, in case she could read his thoughts with this new gumption of hers. North, as though he could read minds, stifled a nervous grimace.
But Jack just pulled his weight off his staff and shrugged. "I'll see what I can do, but no promises, Tooth."
"That's it? That's all you've got?" Bunny hollered angrily, but Jack ignored him, riding off on the unsettlingly warm wind that had suddenly picked up.
Tooth sighed. Sandy gestured, sand flying – a hearty snowflake, a car, something that might have resembled a Christmas tree topper – but the company shook their heads, no response to what the mute man was saying.
It was going to be a long new year.
Jack Frost did not go far. He was, in reality, just as distraught about the unnaturally warm weather as the other Guardians were. But how was he supposed to explain that it wasn't his fault? At least, not intentionally so.
The wind stilling, Jack dropped down a few feet onto the surface of the lake, the water freezing where he placed his bare feet. He carried his staff on his shoulders, wrists lazily around it, as he wandered in circles. He was thinking, going mad, having already tried and failed a hundred times over to bring on the winter frosts and chaotic blizzards. Was it him? Was there really something wrong with him?
Jack seated himself absentmindedly on the ice. With a hand, he lazily traced the surface of the water, it freezing where he graced it, but slowly, lethargically, like a sleepwalker in a lucid dream.
He was trying to remember his last great snowstorm. Maybe he'd just forgotten how to do it, he thought. He could forget he had a sister, so he could forget how to be a Guardian – that's how it worked, right? He looked up at the moon, who of course had no answers, and he dropped his gaze and he yelled, loudly, with frustration and rage. His anger echoed through the trees, and he felt that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Years, and it had never gone away, not even a bit. In fact, Jack was pretty sure it had gotten bigger, more consuming.
Jack's voice faltered as he ran out of air.
Everything was still for a long, tired heartbeat. Then, closing his eyes, Jack stood. To any on-looking believer, he seemed calm, identifiably cool. But inside, he was seething, like a wolf baring its teeth at its own reflection. It was him, it was his fault. Of course it was. Because that was, and everything since that had been because of him.
Utter uselessness weighing down his legs, Frost swung his arms and threw his staff, resolving that he was, despite everyone's words, not a Guardian. He wasn't; he couldn't be. He wasn't any good at it; there had to be someone, anyone, better. Someone who wouldn't have forgotten, who would have remembered his responsibilities, fun or otherwise. Why did it have to be him?
Landing with a clatter that echoed through the oppressingly empty air, Jack's staff lay whole on the rocks just off shore. He thought about leaving it there, about never picking it up again. About leaving and letting the stupid thing rot away where it lay. But he couldn't.
Defeated, Jack rubbed his hand over his face, before turning to retrieve his staff. A familiar, unforgotten voice stopped him in his steps.
"Still throwing temper tantrums, are we, baby Guardian? Aren't you supposed to be a little too mature for that now?"
Pitch Black was on the bank. Recuperating from his humiliating defeat a decade back, he'd been hibernating restlessly in the darkest corners of a cave high in the Appalachians. If it were up to him, he'd still be there. But it was even harder to sleep than usual with the increased number of fearful cries about global warming in his ears. And so, with an annoyed declaration of, "Since when am I the responsible one?" Pitch had left his cave to see exactly what was the matter.
"You don't seem to be doing your job, Frost, that's what's the matter. I'm allowed to slack, I haven't had a starring role since the Dark Ages - you lot made sure of that - but you, you're playing with the big boys now. You're not allowed to throw fits and keep the skies clear as it suits you."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Are you finished, Pitch? Can I have my staff back?"
Pitch scoffed. "Oh yes, because my Nightmares and I are keeping it from you," he said, gesturing at the empty space and lack of Nightmares around him.
Jack looked expectantly at his staff, where it lay just a few feet from Pitch Black. Then he looked at the too-thin, coal-skinned man perched on the rock in front of him. The man laughed at him. "You think I'm going to retrieve it for you?" Pitch asked. Then he smirked. "Maybe I'll just snap it in two again. I mean, why not? It's not as if you're really using it, in any case."
Pitch stood, and Jack, panicked, took a few rushed steps towards the bank.
"No, wait-" Without warning, the water ceased to freeze underfoot, and with a yelp and an accompanying splash, Jack Frost tumbled into the lake waters below.
Pitch Black, unlike the water, froze. Mouth open, as though he were about to say something, he blinked a couple times, short and quick, before regaining his composure and raising an eyebrow.
"Jack?" he called hesitantly. "Jack Frost? Can you swim, Jack?"
There was, of course, no answer, and Pitch, despite being the bringer of bad dreams, was not exactly sure how to proceed. So, as many do in times of internal identity crisis, he glanced up at the moon. "Well," he said after a moment more, "you sure know how to pick them, don't you?"
But no sooner than Pitch Black had finished this question, a ruckus broke through the water's surface. All of Jack's ice had melted, and so, gasping for air, the kid kicked and paddled and willed himself to the rocky bank. Pitch stared in confusion as one hand and then the other grasped the rock's edge, and the lithe, gasping figure of a brunette boy pulled himself up onto the rocks. Dripping, the boy rolled onto his back and starred at the stars, which reflected brilliantly against the deep brown irises of the kid's half-closed eyes. And Pitch, a pang of loneliness surprising him, picked up Jack's stick, and melted into the shadows.
"Lighten up, North. I mean, it's not like there's a rule that says it has to snow before New Year's Eve. No snow in December isn't unheard of. The mid to late spring temperatures are a bit weird, but hey, the ozone's healing, so we have to keep the humans on their toes somehow." Year placed a mug of warm eggnog beside North's head. Despondent, Santa was hunched over on the bar stool, face-down on the bar top, his arms dangling lamely at his sides.
The toymaker gave a muffled, unclear response to the bartender's half-hearted consolation.
"What's that, North?"
Santa sat up. "I say, not snow on Christmas? Is fine, is fine. Heartbroken children become strong children. But not flurries, even, or, vhat you say, dusting? No frost or icicles or slippery sidevalks? Strong children, yes, but vhat about the adults? Vinter makes adults strong!"
"I'm sure the adults of the northern hemisphere will forgive Jack for some delayed soreness and possible tragedies, North," the bartender replied, grabbing a bottle of Krug 2000 from the shelf along the back wall. He was behind schedule, through no fault of his own, so he supposed he deserved to start off well tonight.
"But is not about Jack, Year, is about duty! Responsibility! Jack is Guardian. Jack is good Guardian."
Bunny snorted from his seat at a table out in the empty lounge. "Good Guardian my—" The champagne popped open and, leaning against the counter, Year refilled his own empty glass.
"Don't you two have anything better to do than bother me? I open in an hour, you know." But the two Guardians ignored him.
"Jack is Guardian. Jack knows how to be Guardian; is like riding bike, or driving sleigh, is impossible to forget how to be Guardian—"
"Yes, yes, you're all heroes." Only Year didn't seem fazed by Pitch Black's sudden arrival. North stiffened, his shoulders broadening as he stood up from the barstool, and Bunny, pulling his boomerang from his back as though he was pulling a sword from its sheathe, readied himself to hop over the lounge seat. "Oh, do relax," Pitch said, a command not at all enforced by the presence of Jack's staff gripped tightly in his hand.
Year did what he did best, cutting through the tension by offering a drink. "Since it's already a party, Pitch, what can I get you?"
"Is not friend, Year," North hissed. Year shrugged.
Pitch feigned offense, before rolling his eyes and replying, "I'm not here for a drink, Year, though I appreciate the acknowledgement."
Year frowned, and took another sip of his champagne. "Why have you come, then?"
"You sorry excuses for protectors can't be bothered to keep track of your allies, so I've had to do it for you," Pitch answered, tossing Jack's staff at North. The wonder-filled man caught it, his face torn between sporting a look of confused suspicion, and enraged blame.
"What did you do to Jack?" Bunny asked. The table behind him rocked as he pushed off it to launch himself over the back of the lounge seat, and the shattering of glass on the marble floor echoed through the tension like molasses in a sideways jar. Year, from behind the bar, let out a displeased grunt.
"Me? Why, I didn't do a thing," Pitch replied innocently. "Something did happen, though," he teased, enjoying himself. It'd been a bit since he'd had to opportunity to dangle something over these twits.
North snapped, moving faster than his appearance may otherwise suggest, and grabbed Pitch by his collar. North slammed the Nightmare King against the bar, knocking over the barstools and earning additional whines from Year.
"Where is Jack, Pitch?" North growled. Pitch Black chuckled.
"Go ask the Man in the Moon." And the boogeyman vanished.
Chapter 2
November
Jamie Bennett didn't answer the knock at the window because he was at a party. Or he had been, until his mother had picked him up.
Martha Bennett was one of those realistic parents, the kind that always told their kid to call them if he ever got into a sticky situation, and they'd pick him up, no questions asked. At least not until the following morning. And so, when her fourteen year old son called her up around midnight that Friday evening he'd gone out with his friends, Martha Bennett had kindly asked the neighbors to keep an eye on Sophie, asleep on the second floor, while she took the Jeep out to salvage her slightly inebriated son.
She wasn't angry, disappointed perhaps, but slightly relieved. She had been half-worried, secretly of course, that Jamie was never going to reach his rebellious phase, let alone his mature one. And so while she knew, as a parent, she should be irritated, she only sort of, kind of, was. And besides, she had conditioned herself to expect this.
What she hadn't expected, however, was the snow that had fallen in the couple hours since dark. The trusty weatherman on Channel Four had said nothing about a dusting, just mentioning the drop in temperatures as a passing November revelation. As an experienced driver, however, she knew snow likely meant ice and so she took her time heading home.
Thinking about work the next morning, however, and the lack of sleep she had gotten the past few nights she'd worked the graveyard shift, she just wished home was closer.
December, four years later
Headlights flashed, illuminating the dark forest road. Hayden slouched down in the passenger seat. "It was just a sleepover, Mom. I don't know why you're so upset."
"You don't know – did Jessica's parents know you were there? Did they know he was there?" Louisa exclaimed, eyes fixed firmly on the empty road, but attention on her seventeen-year-old child. The teenager did an eye roll.
"Uh, yeah," Hayden said. "Jess's parents are totally cool with the whole co-ed thing. And besides, Tommy's a hundred percent gay."
Louisa blinked. "Really?" she balked after a moment. "But he dresses so… senselessly."
Hayden snorted. "Come on, Mom, don't be so old-fashioned. It's not like I'm a girl because I wore a dress and painted my nails today."
"Dammit," Lousia swore, slamming her hand on the steering wheel. "I forgot to ask this morning." She shot her child a guilty look. "Sorry, sweetheart."
"'S'okay, Mom. She, her, hers were better today, anyways," Hayden replied, smirking gently as she pulled a pair of wireless headphones from her jean jacket pocket. The genderfluid teen smiled at her mother. "Thanks for remembering you forgot."
As her child switched on the slightly too loud metal music, Louisa sighed. She might not be able to make it to every hockey game, but she should at least be able to remember to ask her oldest kid what pronouns are preferred for the day over breakfast every morning. Maybe she should set a reminder on her phone. She could add it on to the reminder to delete her ex-husband's number that rang at eight every morning, she thought with a shrug.
Louisa was pulled from her thoughts as her headlights reflected upon the back of a thin, lanky figure in a blue sweatshirt strolling down the shadowed road. His hood was down, and so Louisa could make out the shiny brown hair that spiked messily in every direction. A sense of impossible familiarity struck her, but Louisa was in need of a win.
"Isn't that the eldest Bennett kid?" Louisa asked. She looked at Hayden, who had her eyes closed, the sound of guitars, screaming, and crashing echoing from the earbuds. "Hayden? Hayden!"
Ignored, the woman heaved a sigh and slowed down her minivan, pulling closer to the right as she approached (who she was sure was) Martha Bennett's boy. She rolled down the passenger side window as she pulled up next to him.
"Bennett," Louisa called out the window, taking her eyes off the road. The boy didn't seem to hear her at first. "Bennett!" she called again, and this time, the boy looked over towards her as she slowed to a stop. He did a double take, stopping as well, and then, wordlessly, pointed at himself. "Yes," Louisa clarified. "You. You're Martha's oldest, right?"
The boy blinked at her, then nodded once, the singularity of it suggesting confident positivity to Louisa. "Come on in then," Louisa invited, unlocking the right back door of the minivan with her left-hand switch. The boy hesitated, and so Louisa explained herself. "Get in, I'll take you home. It's not safe to walk down this road so late at night."
"I'm wet," Bennett informed her, and Louisa, prepared as the Daisy Scout troop leader she was, seemed unfazed by this rather bizarre 10 pm circumstance.
"Sit in the middle row," she instructed, as the automatic minivan door pulled open. The Bennett boy climbed inside. Worming himself over one car seat, he dropped his weight beside it and grimaced unceremoniously as he scratched his arm on the car seat to the other side. He adjusted himself, the plastic cover encasing the entire middle row squeaking absurdly, before settling stiffly, arms resting on his lap, palms open on his knees, and back up straight. The car seats on each side of him gave the car an air not unlike what he imagined a cramped prison cell to be. Louisa's ex-husband would have told him the mini-van was much worse.
Louisa flipped a switch and the door slid closed, the sound of the child-safety lock engaging. Pressing down on the gas and bringing the car back fully into the right lane, she looked at the reflection in the rearview mirror of the quiet boy in her back seat. She was nearly positive he was Martha's oldest. He looked familiar, and Louisa honestly had no other idea whose teenager he could be.
"I'm sorry, can you remind me of your name?" Louisa asked. She knew the Bennetts, of course, but it was just so hard to remember sometimes; after all, Martha's boy didn't roll with Hayden's posse.
When the boy didn't answer, Louisa laughed. "Oh, come on, now, it's not like I'm a stranger. I know your mother from P.T.O. meetings." She dropped her voice. "When Martha bothers to show up," she muttered. She met the boy's eyes in the rearview mirror, and gave him a kind, if a bit forced, smile. "Your name, it starts with a 'J,' doesn't it? I bet I could guess it. Jim? John? Joshua?"
The boy blinked. "It's Ja—"
"Jamie!" Louisa interrupted, slamming her hand on the steering wheel for the second time that night. "That's right," she added. "I remember."
The boy didn't correct her, so Louisa, her guilt of forgetting something assuaged by remembering something else, smiled happily to herself.
The remaining fifteen-minute drive back into Burgess town center was a quiet one. Louisa pulled up to the end of the Bennett family driveway, releasing the child-lock so Jamie could climb out. The boy did so, and once he was free of the car, Louisa pulled away.
Jamie reflecting in the rearview mirror, Hayden in the passenger seat suddenly sat up. She pulled out her earbuds, and shot her mother a curious look.
"Who was that?" she asked. Louisa glanced over at her teenager briefly.
"Oh, it was Jamie Bennett. I came up on him walking down the dark part of route 12. Thought I'd do Martha a favor and bring him home."
Hayden twisted back, looking out the back window at the rapidly shrinking figure still at the end of the Bennett driveway. Then, she gave her mother an intensely perturbed look.
"Mom, don't you remember? Jamie Bennett's dead."
"This is a red, I repeat, RED alert. It's all hands on deck - we're going to need all the eggs in the basket, all the yetis in the toy shop, all the teeth in the mand—"
"Panicking won't help Jack, sheila."
The Tooth Fairy was flying around in a frenzy, not unlike that time she had lost to Jack during a MarioKart tournament. Though at least then, she thought with dissatisfaction, she'd been frenzying with anger, not anxiety.
"Are you telling me to calm down?" she snapped, glaring at the rabbit, coming in just a bit too close and a bit too fast. Paling as much as a furry mammal could, Bunnymund shook his head, bringing his paws up to protect himself.
"No—ah, no, sheila – m'am, ah, missus –"
"No more of zis bickering, is not helping!" North called from a few floors down, his voice echoing up through the large central hall. "And I think Yetis should be not in toy shop, yes? Should be out, looking for Jack—"
"It was a figure of speech, North!" Tooth wheeled away from Bunny, who released an audible gasp of air. He began pondering how quietly a bunny could hop away from an angry woman with wings. Likely not quietly enough, but he was willing to risk it.
Sandy, of course, was silent, watching the chaos of a missing Guardian – revealed as missing by none other than Pitch Black – calmly from his spot by the railing. He was worried about Jack, of course, but something in his sands told him Manny had a hand, or crater, in this. Guardians don't just disappear after all. He just wished that the Man in the Moon would take credit for it, so that things made sense.
Sandy let out a soundless sigh of exasperation. Something making sense – that certainly wouldn't be happening in the near future. A long new year indeed.
"… I am just seggesting, Tooth, that Jack would not be lost if ve had said yes to the cell phone idea," North was saying as he unlocked the elevator cage and shrugged out.
"Well excuse me for not having pockets – literally, and because more people need to be aware of the fact that female clothing never has pockets –"
"I'm gonna have to side with the sheila on this one, mate. Sorry—"
"Don't side with me because you pity me. I don't need you to be on my side! Don't feel bad for me because Jack's missing and we all know it's my fault!" Tooth yelled, and North's face fell quiet suddenly. Sandy, from his spot by the railing, frowned.
Bunny, however, missed the confession at first. "What, no – no, it's not like I have pockets either, she—" and his eyes widen a bit as he stopped talking. "Oh."
"Tooth, is not-" North started, but the Fairy cut him off.
"It is. What was I thinking, bringing up Jamie?"
"Jack knows the kid's death ain't his fault."
"Does he, though? I mean, did we even stop to ask him?" Tooth snapped at Bunny. "Or did we already forget he's only been a Guardian for a few years?" The large central room, the globe of lights standing robustly in the middle, fell anxiously quiet.
"Jack is Guardian, not child, Tooth."
"He hasn't been a kid for a long, long time," Bunny added, but the Tooth Fairy shook her head.
She let out a hushed, desperate whimper. "But that's just it."
Jack was hiding behind a bush. It seemed, after all, like the most logical thing to do when everyone could see him. He hadn't felt this violated in centuries.
He'd been behind this bush since before sunrise, and while he was pleased with himself for not frosting off New England's plant life yet, he was also acutely angry with himself for being stuck where he was. Now that the sun was out, so were the people.
He supposed he could call North, or Tooth, or even maybe Bunny would be helpful in this scenario, but he couldn't for the life of him remember if the North Pole had a landline. Idiots should have agreed to the cell phone idea, he thought with irritation.
What was the likelihood of making it all the way to the North Pole via foliage and shrubbery? Crossing any barren Canadian tundra was likely to be the hard part, he reasoned, and so maybe he'd be better off just renting one of those things – what had Jamie called it? A snow car – snow truck –
"What are you doing?"
Jack's thoughts dropped hard at the sound of the small voice, and while he managed to lift his eyes, his mouth suddenly felt very, very dry.
Jack's brown eyes made contact with one green one and a mess of blonde hair that hid the other.
"Oh, for Santa's sake," he uttered. This had really very much been what he was hoping to avoid.
"Three," Sophie Bennett said, and then she offered a hand out graciously.
"What?"
"Three," she repeated. Jack's head cocked a bit in confusion, and the young girl let out a sigh of exasperation, her expression clouding to match. It looked rather out of place on someone so small, Jack noted. "Take my hand and stand up or it'll be four." Lifting an eyebrow, Jack took her offer.
"Are… are you giving me to the count of ten?" Jack asked, straightening. Sophie shot him another look.
"Alright, that's four." She looked at the watch on her small left wrist.
"Four?"
"Okay, I'm sorry, I can't play with you anymore," Sophie replied matter-of-factly, and turned to take off down the sidewalk.
Jack stood bemused for a moment, muttered a low and very confused "what" to himself, before recovering. He hurried after Bennett.
"Wait, Sophie—" he started, but it ended in a yelp. His toe catching on the uneven cobblestones of the old New England sidewalk, Jack became acutely aware of the fact he was, still, barefoot, and that was not something most people around him were at the moment. Jack felt self-conscious.
"That's five!" the young Bennett girl called behind her, and now, a bit agitated and more than that annoyed, Jack raced to catch up with her.
She turned the corner on Newton Street, not breaking stride as a skateboarder whipped by, and Jack, just a few feet behind her now, nearly fell over trying to dodge the headphoned teen. He ducked his way past couples walking hand-in-hand and a suited man with a briefcase, pardoning himself to a woman talking loudly on her phone and catching the Starbucks drink he'd knocked out of some poor guy's hand. "Hey, great reflexes, man!"
"Sorry, I'm sorry," Jack excused himself, keeping an eye on the bobbing blonde that was rapidly disappearing from view. He watched her slip into a building, something called a Star Market, and he rushed in after her.
A hand smacked hard into his chest, and Jack stopped quite suddenly, grimacing.
"No shoes, no service. This ain't the Dark Ages, kid." The hand that had braked his momentum was large, muscular, and hairy, belonging to a rather tall and green-aproned man, whose paired hairnet suggested he actually belonged at the deli cutting meat in the back of the store.
But Jack, of course, didn't know this. His only thought when he saw the big, oafish man was that this must be the long-lost brother Krampus North talked about after one too many egg nogs.
"Uh, yeah, right, shoes. Um, can I just – do you, ah –" the man glared at Jack as he fumbled for words. "Do you, uh, sell shoes?"
"Does this look like a Macy's, kid?"
Jack stared at the man blankly. The deli worker let out a beefy, disgruntled sigh.
"There's flip-flops in aisle nine, by the small shelf of office supplies. Try not to contaminate anything with your dirty barbarism while you make your way there," he monotoned. "Damn kids these days…" but the rest of the insult was lost on Jack, who tiptoed his way into the store. He had very little idea where aisle nine was and what exactly he was looking for, but he was pretty sure he'd know shoes when he saw them.
He rounded a shelf of bright read boxes, squinting to make out the words as he did so. Had he forgotten how to read, or had handwriting gotten fancier? Wait, he wasn't even sure he had learned how to read. No, no, he definitely had, he reminded himself. That's what all those memories in the small school house down the road were about, that's right, he remembered now –
"Ow!" Sophie Bennett yelped, and Jack, echoing her exclamation in a slightly deeper voice, jumped back, rubbing his sore sternum. It was most decidedly bruised; he'd forgotten what that felt like.
Sophie recovered faster than he did, tossing the flip-flops in her hand on the floor in front of him.
"Here," she said curtly, and Jack took a moment to stare at what she had thrown his way.
"What are those?"
"Flip-flops."
"Those are shoes?"
"Yes?" Sophie replied, her confusion echoing his.
"They'll keep my feet warm?"
"Probably not?" Sophie huffed, and looked again at her watch. "But it's not like it's cold out. Just put them on and follow me." She whipped around and Jack frowned as she took off. Quickly, he stepped into the flip-flops – it took him a couple tries to realize the most comfortable positioning – and raced after her. He was very aware now of the smacking sound his supposed shoes made on the hard floor (but at least he was wearing shoes?) and he nearly tripped more than once.
He found Sophie, again, beside shelves upon shelves of drinks.
"I've decided that's six, not seven," she said, then gestured to the rack of bottles to her left. "And I need two liters of Diet Pepsi."
"The what?"
"The silver ones." Jack didn't bother to ask again, and he merely moved to grab the silver clad bottles beside where Sophie stood.
"How many is two liters?" Jack asked, and Sophie blinked once.
"Okay, I know this is America and we use the Imperial system and everything, but I'm counting that as seven. Just grab two of the one liter bottles."
"Seven," Jack muttered, feeling disappointed in himself for some reason, and then he did as he was told.