A/N: I read and treasured every bit of critique I received so thank you all! Just so everyone knows, this began as something of an experimental piece. I wanted to write something either incredibly fluffy or something exceptionally dark. Obviously, I chose the latter. One of these days I'll have to go back and write something very full of fluff to make up for this.
"It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses." — Colette
Extracting the arrow was more difficult than North had been expecting. The worst part of it was Jack hardly made a sound as it was being removed. The only sign of life was the slight up and down motion of the young winter spirit's chest.
The earsplitting cries the Tooth fairy had been expecting never came. Jack's mouth was open but he did not scream. A strangled gurgling noise escaped his throat instead. Tooth stared as blood pooled into his mouth and spilled to the floor, smearing the wooden floors beneath them with blood as red and raw as crushed roses. Awful tremors continued to wrack his frail body and she was helpless to make it stop.
All Tooth could do was smooth out a crease in Jack's sleeve, trying to distract herself from holding him down and bearing witness to his agony. With her other hand, she kept his hand pinned to the floor as North ordered. Holding him still was proving difficult. Despite her efforts, he still struggled to yank his arm out of her grasp. If Tooth had allowed him, he could inadvertently cause more harm to himself than good. So Tooth retaliated by tightening her fingers around Jack's hand even more firmly, trying to steady him as if doing so might soothe his suffering.
Her eyes remained on Jack whom stared in her direction with eyes wide open yet seeing nothing. His gaze drifted past her as if he was looking at something far beyond her.
Beads of sweat formed across his hairline and Tooth was compelled to brush the disheveled, fallen hair off his face. When she did, the touch of his forehead made her recoil. Jack was warm and she had never known the young winter spirit to feel quite this warm. He breathed sharply as if there wasn't enough air in the room to fill his lungs anymore.
"How could we have let this happen?" Tooth asked. The question had not been directed to anyone in particular, but her eyes lifted from Jack to the Guardian kneeling directly in front of her. Bunnymund. "You knew he couldn't take on Pitch by himself," she said. "Didn't you receive North's signal? He warned you Pitch was there! You were supposed to be there to help him!"
There was nothing that Bunnymund had to say toward Tooth's misdirected accusation. She was frightened and angry. He understood that and there was nothing she could do right now — nothing any of them could possible do right now except vent their frustration. That was all Tooth was doing and once she realized it, her voice thinned. "I didn't mean that," she said.
"There's no need to start passing blame around," North told her through his clenched jaw. His grip was still held firmly around the lodged arrow. "Pitch caught us all with our guard down. We all got the warning and Bunnymund got to him faster than any of us could. There's nothing more we could have done."
North could not bear looking at Jack anymore. His focus was strictly on the arrow now. He had successfully pulled most of it out but a good portion of the arrow was still lodged inside his abdomen. North moved his gloved hand down the length of the arrow still penetrating Jack's body. Blood that covered the arrow was beginning to soak into his glove.
Then North took another deep breath and gave it everything he had, tearing the arrow out of him with one final jerk. The moment the arrow was extracted, it crumbled in North's grasp. It deteriorated into a heap of black sand.
A single shout finally burst from Jack and he closed his mouth abruptly, struggling to stifle his screaming. His back arched off the bloodstained floor. He thrashed his head side to side and now Tooth was really starting to panic because Jack suddenly seemed to be in more pain that he had before. She wrapped Jack's hand around hers and stroked the back of his hand, drawing her attention down to his fingers. Something was very wrong. She turned Jack's hand facing up and gasped.
The veins in his wrist were black.
Bunnymund, who still held Jack's other hand, immediately inspected the other side of his wrist once he noticed. He lifted the sleeve of Jack's hoodie further up his arm. Dread dropped into the pit of his stomach. The veins that scrawled up the entire length of the boy's arm were visible and black as ink.
"What's wrong with him?" he demanded.
There was only silence.
Jack continued to bleed profusely from the gaping hole in his abdomen and not knowing what else to do, Bunnymund forced his paw over the open gash in Jack's stomach, trying to compress the wound. He called out to him. "Oy! Jack, can you hear me?"
Jack didn't answer. He didn't even acknowledge that he had heard him. His back collapsed back against the floor and his relentless thrashing gradually stilled. He didn't seem to even have the energy anymore and Bunnymund knew that was not a good sign.
"Fight it, Frostbite," he told him.
"Jack," Tooth said, squeezing her hands around his even tighter but to her horror, she could feel his hand fall limp.
The Sand Man turned his gaze toward Jack with an expression that was completely indecipherable. He shook his head.
"Stand back!" North ordered. "All of you."
Tooth and Sandy sunk back but Bunnymund did not move. His paw remained firmly in place over Jack's stomach and he did not even glance in North's direction, causing the rest of the Guardians to all wonder if he had even heard North's command but was simply choosing to ignore it.
North didn't find a need to repeat himself however. There was enough space to fully assess Jack's condition and that would be enough for what he needed to see. Not that it mattered. It only confirmed in North's mind what he had been expecting though he hoped he had been wrong.
"That darkness now coursing through his veins is as dangerous as any deadly poison would be on a mortal person." He attempted to articulate his words in a way that would ease the shock of what he was about to say. "Without the proper help, he won't make it. There's darkness coursing through his veins and if we do nothing, he will inevitably succumb to the effects."
"There must be something we can do," Tooth said, not wanting to think what could happen to Jack if they didn't. Then an unanticipated thought crossed her mind.
How did she not see it before?
"Jack's staff," she realized frantically. "Where is it?"
Bunnymund blinked. Then the absolute horror struck him. Memory of the incident by the river came rushing back. It was true. Jack was without his staff. Back at the river, Jack had asked him to wait yet Bunnymund had dismissed it. Of course. Jack had been trying to tell him to wait because he had known his staff was gone. Regrettably, Bunnymund had ignored him.
"It must be back at that river," Bunnymund told her. He hadn't been thinking clearly after Jack had been impaled by the arrow. As a matter of fact, he wasn't thinking clearly now when he announced, "I'll go get it."
Most likely Jack's staff was in Pitch's possession, but he didn't say that part to the others.
"You'll do no such thing," North stopped him. "If it's even still back there, it'd surely be a trap for any one of us."
But Bunnymund already staggered to his feet. He finally lifted his paw from Jack's abdomen. Blood stained its fur where he had tried to control the bleeding. He was already preparing to open a portal tunneling from North's fortress back to the river. "I'll make it quick," he said, completely ignoring North's previous order. Again.
North crossed his arms over his chest and intercepted Bunnymund, barring him from crossing over into his newly formed portal. "No."
Tension began to fill the room and Sandy floated back several feet. Tooth leapt to her feet and placed herself firmly between the two Guardians. "Enough!" she said. "Both of you."
None of them were by Jack's side any longer except the Sand Man, who kept a steadfast watch on Jack's rapidly worsening condition. If none of them acted now, it really would be too late for him. Golden sand rustled impatiently around Sandy. They had to get their act together fast but fear for Jack's life had already clouded their sense to rationalize and reason.
"Bunny, help me, I can't –," Jack choked on his words. It was enough to silence everyone in the room. His entire body was shaking and the black veins weaving up his arms were pulsating. The protruding veins spread to his neck and were now running alongside the length of his face, stopping short at his temples. Suddenly his mouth closed and he clenched his eyes shut.
Why Jack had chosen to call out to him, Bunnymund did not know. But he rushed to Jack's side in an instant in a desperate attempt to stop whatever was happening. Tears were running freely from the corners of Jack's tightly closed eyes, dripping down his face and onto the floor beneath him, mixing with his already spilled blood. It was the most frustrating thing in the world to want to stop someone's suffering and being absolutely helpless to do so.
"You're going to be fine," Bunnymund told him. "I'll make sure of it."
Jack looked over at him vaguely. His eyes opened yet the spirited blue glow that usually gleamed behind them was gone. Then his eyes fluttered and closed.
Nothing but silence remained.
The young winter spirit was deathly still, his lips slightly parted with his arms lying limp at his sides, eyes parted open but seeing nothing. Bunnymund swallowed hard and placed a steady paw over Jack's chest, his throat closing up when he no longer felt the once rising and falling motion that had once been there.
Bunnymund tried to swallow back his fear but it came up again in a frigid block that made his throat ache and his eyes sting. There was no way. He refused to believe it. It simply could not be possible.
Jack wasn't breathing.
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