Author's Notes: written for the kink meme, on which someone requested Jack designing snowflakes.
Unique
Jack takes his inspiration where he finds it, as he always does, but for the first time in three centuries, he can't work fast enough to give his imagination form.
They keep catching his eye, the tiny details in places he's never been allowed before.
He admires the lines in the star on top of North's Christmas tree, and he studies the delicate ridges of Tooth's feathers. In Bunny's Warren, phlox and lilies and plumeria grow, six-petaled and lovely, and Sandman's dreams glimmer and shift, a lighting trick that Jack would love to perfect. Even Jaime's room, so ordinary and pleasant, is a thing long forbidden: the inside of a house, full of small secrets like the texture of a quilt or the gleam of well cared-for toys.
It comes upon him at strange moments, the desire to shape his thoughts. He scratches designs into tree bark and onto the ice of puddles. He traces snowflakes in the frost on window panes and forms the outlines with twigs and draws them with his fingers in the dirt. He incorporates these small details, these things that are so refreshingly new to him.
And for the first time ever, someone sees him at his work. For the first time ever, he attracts curious gazes. "How pretty," says Tooth, and "Not bad, mate," Bunny admits, and "This design, it is yours?" asks North. Sandy says nothing at all, but he forms a snowflake and a question mark.
Their compliments bring a flush of pleasure, warm and inviting. He is flattered by their praise, by their surprise, by their interest.
But best of all are the questions. After all the years of imagining that someone would care to ask about what he does – after centuries of speaking the words aloud to himself, or to imagined admirers – after picturing this scene an infinite variety of different ways – Jack can finally give his answer. "What," the boy says, pretending nonchalance. "You don't think they're all different by accident, do you?"
More questions follow, and Jack has never been more eager to share. He tells them how he keeps track of which combinations he's already tried. He describes the bases and the outlines of the ridges, the length of the arms and the shapes of the crystals and the way they can be elaborated with the detailwork. He explains how it's possible to achieve an almost infinite variety, this way – how with ninety-five different base options and a large enough set of ideas to draw from, it's easy to assure that season after season, decade after decade, he never makes the same one twice.
He talks about the things that bring him inspiration – about what he's added to his plans for this year. He talks about the flowers and the star, the feathers and the sand and Jaime's quilt. He is glib and elated and proud, and he grins so hard it hurts when he assures them each, in turn, "You've all got something in there. Just wait till winter – you'll see."
And when, on the first snowfall of the season, they come to his lake one at a time with captured snowflakes – when they ask if they have found the right one, or two, or five - when they want to see the parts that make it theirs – Jack's laughter rings out in the clear, chill air, and he swears to himself that next year, he will do better yet.