Cold and Dark

by PhantomBowtie

"What goes together better than cold...and dark?" Pitch may be defeated, but his words won't leave Jack Frost be. Unwanted by the Guardians and alone, when Jack crashes in a strange wood and meets the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, will he find it more welcoming than the misunderstandings of the Guardians? Rated T because I'm unsure of how to get where I'm going. NO SLASH.

4. TEASER CHAPTER, INCOMPLETE

Hi, there! PhantomBowtie here. I know I said I'd update some for Christmas, but it's 6:15am and I'm turning out more typos than words. I do my best to catch them, but odds are I'll miss plenty, and I don't think any of you want to read a chapter full of typos. So I'm uploading this bit as a teaser, and will upload the rest when I've had some sleep and can do cognitive thinking again. I repeat, THIS IS NOT THE ENTIRE CHAPTER. I AM GOING TO DELETE THIS ONCE I UPLOAD THE COMPLETE CHAPTER AFTER I SLEEP.

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or The Nightmare Before Christmas, just my OCs and parts of the plot.

Jaime Bennet walked casually down the street-sort of. It would have been more of a commonplace activity had it actually been daylight out, and had he not been heading towards a particularly dark alley. Still, at eleven years old his actions may have been simply written off by passerby (who, quite frankly, often felt as though they had far better things to do than speculate as to the activities of children). He looked innocent enough as he went along, playing with a peculiar-looking bracelet, yet if one were to look closer, they would notice the faint dark undertones to his hair or the silent way he walked, or the way he seemed almost to disappear when he walked through darker shadows until, quite suddenly, he ducked into a side alley, walked into a particularly dark patch of shadow, and vanished entirely. A stray cat hissed in alarm, tail puffed out, yet the alley remained empty save for the on-edge creature and a few scattered tin cans.

Somewhere else, some time else, Jaime appeared on the winding, crooked main street of Halloween Town. Looking around, he straightened up and walked briskly forward in search of Jack Frost. It had been three years since Jack had come to Halloween Town, leaving Jamie's world and the Guardians behind—less than that since Jaime had learned of where his friend was and received the Halloween Token from none other than one of the unofficial leaders of the town, Skeleton Jack. It had taken quite a lot of practice for him to figure out how to use it, even more so to understand the concept of landing on his feet where he wanted to be. Jack Skellington had pointed out that of course he should expect a rough landing—He was, after all, essentially travelling between two not-quite-connected dimensions via a bracelet.

So he had said, but his entire demeanor practically screamed of mischief, and after all of Jaime's next series of sojourns had always landed him in strange places (halfway up a crumbling tower staircase, in the midst of the skeleton band that frequented the town, and on one particularly memorable occasion, inside of a pumpkin), Jaime had become determined to learn the proper way to utilize it. He was in no serious danger from his odd landings, but they generally took him a long time to extricate himself from. Now, however, he was fairly certain that he had a handle on it. He'd landed upright, on his feet this time, in the middle of the street. Why, it was almost too good to be—His train of thought came to an abrupt and crashing halt as his next step landed him not on the dry (ish) cobblestones he was expecting, but in a moat. Well. Apparently he still needed the practice.

Half an hour later (or, after the amount of time that passed for one), Jaime once more headed on his way down the street to find Jack Frost a little more damp than he'd set out, but on his way again regardless. He wasn't sure where exactly Jack was, but had learned through his trips that if he just walked around he would eventually run into someone who knew. There always seemed to be something going on in Halloween Town, and news traveled quickly when it did. Today, however, he made it all the way to the outskirts of town before a passerby carrying what looked to be a large bazooka made entirely out of bones and dental floss stopped and pointed him in the right direction—to the dwelling of Lock, Shock, and Barrel. Since he'd first introduced the trio to Jaime, Jack had spent a lot of time in their company, and by now Jaime suspected that they were planning something big…and he wanted to be a part of it.