Hey all.
Sorry about the delay in posting, but I've been trying to work out the kinks in the plot.
Before any of you get really excited, this fic is basically a follow up fic. I'm going to estimate the length of this fic to be ten to fifteen chapters long, at best, and it is going to be centered around Jack and Bunnymund, considering that the pairing is JackRabbit. And there is going to be angst. And hurt, and drama, and all that other good stuff. So...enjoy the official start of Fix You.
Warning: There is a lot of angst and hurt in this fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians.
Summary: He had always been alone. Now he's struggling to find his place with the Guardians. Sequel to What's Left of Me.
o-o-o-o
Jack woke with a quiet whine of fear. His blue eyes flickered around the room he was staying in quickly, his heart pummelling against his ribcage like a hummingbird. He couldn't remember what exactly had made him so nervous, but he did know that he was terrified now.
His fingers clenched around the thin quilt that he had been tangled in, and before he quite knew what he was doing, the Winter Spirit slid out of bed quietly, his bare feet touching the warm wood flooring hesitantly. Softly, he opened his door and padded down the hall as softly as a cat, subconscious mind taking him to the one place he knew he would feel safest.
As he tentatively ran his fingers over the door of Bunnymund's room, he wondered if he should be here. After being so vague for the last couple of days, what would the Pooka think of him simply crawling into bed with him?
The clock continued to crawl forward, and Jack finally decided that it didn't matter. He needed some kind of comfort, and there was only one person he felt comfortable enough to do so with.
Opening the door, the teen entered the guest room that Bunnymund was borrowing while he helped North get back on track.
There wasn't much to see in the dark, but Jack's instincts guided him to the giant nest of blankets and various other materials that lay on top of the bedframe. Slowly, he climbed over the small hill and instantly slid into Bunnymund's warm side. There was a sudden movement as the Pooka sleepily shifted.
"Frostbite..?" the Pooka mumbled, one of his arms settling over Jack's spine. "Whass wrong?"
"Can't sleep." he replied simply, curling into the warmth that the Pooka was offering.
"Mkay.." came the soft grunt before Bunnymund tugged Jack closer, pulling him up so that his head was resting against the Pooka's chest.
With that, Jack simply listened to Bunnymund's heart beating gently beneath his ear as the night wore on, until his own eyes drifted closed and he too, fell into sleep.
o-o-o-o
His eyes flickered as he woke to the sound of snoring.
Jack blinked fuzzily with a yawn, laying limply in the warmth of Bunnymund's loose grip and trying to wake up. The low rumble coming from the Pooka's chest was somethign comforting, despite the loud tone that it was being blasted into his ears at. In his own opinion, it sounded more like a large and comfortable feline purring than anything else.
It was almost enough to make the Winter Spirit fall back asleep. Almost, but not quite enough. Idly, Jack began tracing vague shapes on Bunnymund's long fur, simply enjoying the moment and the feel of the silk beneath his fingers.
It was a while later before Bunnymund finally stirred, his rumbling pausing before stopping and his muscles tensing as he woke.
"Frostbite? What're you doin' here?"
"Couldn't sleep last night." he muttered. Jack felt so uncomfortable in that moment. Of course Bunnymund wouldn't remember how the Winter Spirit had ended up curled beside him last night. The Pooka had barely been awake when it happened!
"Right..." came the sleepy answer. "Did you sleep well, mate?"
"Better." Jack admitted tentatively.
"Good."
That was not the answer that the Winter Spirit had been expecting. He had been expecting something else- well, he wasn't actually sure what he had been expecting. All he knew was that that hadn't been it.
"I should get back to America." the Winter Spirit finally sighed. "There's a snowstorm due tomorrow."
Bunnymund snorted from next to him. "And that, mate, is why you get in so much trouble."
"Just because it doesn't make any sense to you doesn't mean that it doesn't to me." he retorted. "It's part of the cycle."
"What cycle?"
Bunnymund twisted, shifting so that he was curled around Jack on his stomach, paws folded under his chin. His bright eyes stared at him with open curiosity, and Jack was suddenly hit with the realization that the Pooka was honestly interested in what cycle that he was talking about.
"If you look at the handful of times that there's been snow in places there shouldn't be snow, you'd realize that it's part of the climate cycle that I'm in charge of." he began with a shrug. "As a Winter Spirit, I have to make sure that the climate doesn't get too out of hand, what with all of the pollution that's going around these days. People just don't get that it makes a shit ton of work for me to do to make sure that all of the world doesn't go out of control and go into another ice age. After, of course, the entire fucking world ends because of temperatures rising."
The Pooka merely stared at him, trying to wrap his mind around this new information that had just been poured into his ears. He hadn't thought that Jack's position as a Winter Spirit could ever be so complicated. He had only ever seen it as Jack being a mischievous spirit who made snowballs for fun and screwed around with his powers like he was drunk on them.
Then again, there had been a lot about the Winter Spirit that he hadn't known before he'd almost died twice on his watch.
"So you clean up after everyone's mess?" the Pooka finally asked.
"Something like that." Jack sighed wearily, as though the weight of the world was pressing down on his shoulders. Bunnymund couldn't blame the poor kid. He was a fraction of the age that he and the other Guardians were, and yet he had been through more than anyone would ever hope to understand. Maybe not himself, but Tooth and North would never understand, no matter how hard they could try. Sandy would understand, being older than anyone else was, but there would be the fact that the little man made of sand was more territorial about all of them than North was. "And I'm almost sick of it."
"So that incident back in-?"
"Yeah. That was to ensure that nothing was disrupted in the climate." Jack said vaguely. "Never told you 'cause we hated each other. Never really any reason to."
"Why now, then?"
The Winter Spirit turned his heavy frosty eyes to Bunnymund. "Because things changed."
Somehow, the memory of those mere hours of not being believed in popped into the Pooka's mind, and he instinctively knew that that had been the beginning of the tentative friendship that they two Guardians had begun.
"Yeah, I guess they have, haven't they, Frostbite." he replied softly, curling around the Winter Spirit and drifting back off to sleep.
Jack continued to lay there for several more minutes before he decided that he would rather sleep than get up. Mumbling to himself about how Pooka's made absolutely no sense, the Winter Spirit made himself more comfortable before waiting for sleep to come over him.