They sat around the fire, sweaters old and new aiding the flames in their fight against the cold.
Jake told jokes, Finn and Marceline traded stories, and the Ice King was behaving oddly civilized for once, around all these joyful souls.
But they weren't gathered for Christmas. That's what made Jack want to cry the most. He sat in their tree home, in plain sight if Jack where any old, plain boy, watching the festivities with misty eyes, even though it really should've been North mourning.
North set his warm hand over Jack's cold one, even though the Russian's hands were getting so, so cold so, so fast. He offered a melancholy smile, and Jack tried to smile back, but it only amounted to the mangled grin of a boy not quite ready to slip away into nonexistence.
He was okay, once upon a time. He spent three hundred years not being okay, and for a time he thought that he had finally surpassed the high of "okay" to move into "living." He had friends, he had his memories, he had the moon, and he had believers, and he didn't mind that their numbers were so small, because what they lacked in quantity, they more than made up for in quality. They were loyal, and always willing to skip school for a good snow day.
They were amazing.
But then Pitch had wanted revenge. He made the Lich an offer neither could ever refuse. And so the Mushroom War began.
Bunnymund was the first one to go. It was a terrifying way to bite it, too. All of his fur fell out, his muscles deteriorated. He looked like a shriveled, naked mole rat before finally disappearing completely.
Then, years later, Tooth's believers dwindled. She shed her feathers, and her skin browned. Her wings became bent and crumpled. She died in Jack's arms, smiling, and Jack used to think he hated her for that, being able to leave with a smile, with peace. But now he realizes he was only ever angry at himself for staying with such resentment for the world, for Bunny, for Pitch, for Manny.
And he soon resented Sandy, after he had left them, evaporating into dust and being blown away by the uncaring wind.
But he didn't want to resent North. He was all he had left, they had roughed the past few years together, and he was not going to lose him over something so trivial.
They were so close. So, so close to celebrating Christmas, to believing in Santa, but still miles and years and worlds away. It was so futile, and not even in his three hundred years of initial isolation had he felt so helpless.
"It's alright." North offered. It was a lie. But it was a good lie, the kind of lie that shined like a pretty little truth.
But in the end, after all their struggles and hardships, it was still a lie.
North would leave him, but Jack would still be there.
Always there, in the gentle dispense of snowflakes, in the seasonal frosted window.
They would never hear him scream.
His cries would fall on deaf ears, and if he had ever thought anything different for himself, then it was truly he who had lied.
But still, something stirred in him. The memories of a mother, of a family moved uneasily just below the surface. He heard a lullaby from long ago and he held North's hand until his grip went limp and he started to fade.
"Amber flames
That dance like dames
Will chase the bitter cold away
It's not very big, it could give weigh
But it shines bright enough for us
It's not a lot but we have to trust
These amber flames
Amber flames
That dance like dames
Dance like dames
We have to trust
They'll be enough
For the two of us."