A/N: This one-shot fought me. So if it stinks in places, I'm sorry. I tried my best.
Disclaimer: I no own.
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Santa's dead and gone,
Jack Frost's sad, in guilt he dwells
And still he's all alone,
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Trust is gone and dead,
Jack lays hid within his shell,
And cries small tears of red
It was 2:38AM on Tuesday, September 16, and North was dying.
The memory was still firmly etched in Jack's mind. A group of woodland elves had been causing trouble in Eastern Europe, snatching children from their beds in the middle of the night and taking them MiM knows where. Naturally, the Guardians had to do something, so they had taken the sleigh to Romania to confront the elves there.
The elves had not been happy, to say the least.
What resulted must have been the most brutal battle of the year for the Guardians. Elves were ruthless fighters, with a mind as sharp as their blue steel swords, and they never backed down without a fight. The five Guardians had a hard time defeating them, and even then, none of them had made it out without extensive injuries.
North, however, was in the worst shape of all, and it was all Jack's fault.
Jack had been clumsy, he would freely admit it. He should have seen the elf sneaking behind him as he fought off four others at the same time, should have noticed the sword bearing down on his neck. He hadn't, however, and he would have gladly paid the price for that instance of carelessness.
North taking the blow, however, was not something he had counted on.
The Cossack had shoved him to the side with no warning and no explanation, knocking him easily to the ground, and he had looked up just in time to see the sword flash down, as it glittering a lethal blue-gray in the moonlight, and tear through North's stomach as if it were paper.
Blood had splattered everywhere; on the ground, on the elf, on North, and on Jack. He'd stared in shock as North had turned pale, groaned, and fallen to the ground. Only when the Russian collapsed had he come to himself, yelling in rage as he'd thrown dozens of ice shards in the elf's face, ripping through skin and drawing blood in great globs. By then, though, the damage had already been done.
Now, the elves were overcome, but North was still dying, and guilt was still clawing mercilessly at Jack's insides. Not even the burning of the foxglove poison in his veins could distract him from the thought that North might die because of him.
Guilty thoughts were never pleasant company.
"What have ya done, mate?"
He looked down and away, and didn't say a word. Not for the trip back (as Sandy transported them to the Workshop), nor when they landed behind the massive building, nor when three yetis let them in at the door and hustled them all to the infirmary.
He didn't defend himself, and he didn't apologize.
Outside, the snow kept falling.
When he was turned away at the door of the infirmary and told that he did not need treatment, he didn't protest. He knew better than to believe, for the poison burned in his veins like wildfire clear as day, but he did not contradict.
After all, he knew he wouldn't die.
Oh, it hurt, certainly. His head pounded, his breath was short, his vision was blurred, and his heart was beating far too quickly. Guilt clawed at his insides, in time with the throbbing of his headache, and his body felt as if it was weighed down with lead. Still, he was an immortal. He wouldn't, couldn't, die. Not from foxglove, at least.
The way he saw things, there was simply no point in complaining. His fellow Guardians needed medical treatment far more than he did, and in the meantime, he would survive. In pain, certainly, but he would survive.
He'd be fine.
Somehow, that disappointed him.
Bunny was let out of the infirmary, three hours after he'd entered.
The confrontation was an unpleasant one. Bunny firmly believed that Jack was fully responsible for North's injuries, and did not hesitate to remind him of the fact. For ten minutes straight, the Pooka upbraided Jack, hurling invective and hatred, before limping off to another part of the Workshop, leaving Jack alone again with his thoughts.
(Guilty thoughts were never pleasant company.)
Tooth and Sandy had similar reactions when they were let out. Tooth eyed him with a look of withering scorn before whizzing off, while Sandy simply seemed crestfallen as he followed her. Neither of them blamed him outright, but they both clearly believed him responsible.
Abruptly, Jack felt consumed by a desire to scream. To yell sense into their minds, to tell them "it's not my fault," to demand that they look past their blindfolds of blame and see that he needed help.
He restrained it, though. It was his fault, and he didn't need help. He'd been poisoned with foxglove before, he would live through it again.
...Unfortunately.
The blade flashed down, cutting through air with a mighty swish, shimmering a lethal blue. It didn't shudder at the screams, didn't pause at the ripping of flesh, didn't falter a moment as dark blood stained its flawless surface.
It was beautiful, and exquisitely terrible.
He should know: after all, he is the one bearing it.
He nearly toppled from his perch on the rafters as the nightmare came to an abrupt end, bringing him back to consciousness. His already too-rapid heart was now beating faster than a hummingbird's, and his strained breathing was now causing his chest to ache.
Traces of the nightmare clung to his groggy mind. He felt as if he still were grasping the sword in his hand, as if warm blood was still dripping from his fingertips. In that moment, he knew exactly how it felt to hold such a sword, how it balanced and how it weighed down on the palm, and the thought scared him.
Guilty thoughts were never pleasant company.
A week had passed, and Jack was quietly going insane.
It was as if he were alone again. Elves, yetis, and Guardians alike shunned him, refusing to give him news of their fallen companion, and he was going wild with worry about North. Guilt still clung fervently to him, forcing him to replay the terrible scene over and over in his mind and try to figure out just where it had all gone wrong.
Nightmares plagued him, turning his once-sharp mind into a mess of confusion and fear. They each were the same, with him driving the sword into North's chest as he laughed, a terrifying symphony of ice-cold blood and insanity.
As if this weren't enough, the effects of the foxglove had worsened. He had little energy, no appetite, and a steadily worsening headache. Strangely enough, his vision seemed to be tainted with yellow, now, and his sense of balance was deteriorating, forcing him to sit in a window-seat instead of in the rafters.
He was fine, though…
No.
...He didn't need help…
Lies.
...And no matter what people said, he would always say…
"I'm fine."
The words echoed in the empty room, and did little to reassure him.
A/N: To clarify: Jack is telling himself that he's fine. Liar.
Also, he lied last chapter. He actually is affected by poisons when they're administered in large amounts. He just said he wasn't in order to mess with the hag.
Foxglove is a poisonous plant. It can cause vomiting, loss of appetite, confusion, blurred vision, changes in color perception, vertigo, and decreased energy, as well as an irregular heartbeat which can be either too fast or too slow. Nasty stuff.
Woodland elves are not related in any way to North's band of idiotic "elves".
If you have questions, PM me.