7

self-control

"Balance is not something you find,

It's something you create."

— Jana Kingsford

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He avoids her in the morning. He feels strange. Something like anger, something like sadness, something like pain broils in his chest. She's not his mother. His mother left him – left him with a man like Pitch. A large part of him doesn't want a mother at all. The remainder … well, he lives in a democratic society – does he not? – so the majority gets the vote. What's it matter what she wants, when all his life it's been about what everyone else wants? Isn't it about time that he gets what he wants? That's only fair.

Only fair, he snorts. God, what a fucking idiot. The world isn't fair. The world is a place – a planet – filled with people who are greedy. Even their love is greedy – they want it like they want attention: to validate themselves. Kindness … He is ashamed he is surprised by it. He needn't be. It's selfish.
Nana Lena was kind to him because she felt indebted to him. She was trying to fix her mistakes. Tooth is kind to him because she wants to fulfill some twisted desire to be something after the realization that – well – she couldn't be anything else. She wasn't smart enough; wasn't beautiful enough; wasn't engaging or compelling enough to be a scientist or a model or a politician. She would only ever be Tooth, he thinks nastily, because if he thinks of her as Tooth-my-possibly-adoptive-mother, he might just hit her, because violence sometimes feels like all he knows.
The women in his life have always disappointed him.

And he doesn't need another disappointment; he doesn't need yellow or blue or someone who teaches him that love can be selfless.

Because at the end of the day, all he'll ever have is himself, and he's nothing. There is nothing. There are only black hoodies and black days and red stains on his clothes and the deep satisfaction of a bruise and the pain of a kick that can't supersede the pain in his fucking mind and the scent of piss and shit and semen –

"Jack?" Tooth asks tenderly, holding out hands clutching a cereal bowl. She brought him cereal, because she didn't want him to go hungry. He freezes on the porch at the thought, and raises his eyes to hers, and maybe she sees something in his face, because her small grin dies a little. Something in him dies alongside it. He can't – he can't do this – he just –

So he doesn't. "Fuck off," he says, breathily.

She hasn't done anything to deserve this.

Still. He runs.

His mother taught him well.

"JACK!"

He can't. Not anymore.

He won't.

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When Aster wakes in the morning, it's cold. He swears good-naturedly, and tugs on some clothes as he idly shuffles to the kitchen. His stepmother is already there, unpacking the dishwasher.
"Morning, Aster," she greets with a smile. "Your sister still sleeping?"

He grunts an affirmative as he drags out a cereal bowl, spoon, milk, and some Cheerios.

"I'd like it if you used your words, Aster," she says levelly. "I didn't marry one Australian man to get the silent treatment from two Australian men."

He rolls his eyes a little. "Yes, Tracy, my sister's still sleepin', 'cause she's a lazy demon."

His stepmother sighs and flicks the kettle on. "You're a rude little bastard in the morning if you haven't had some coffee. What did I tell you to call me?"

He makes a face at her over his cereal bowl, but then his eyes crinkle with fondness. "Mum."

She beams. "Mum!" she agrees.

"Mum?!" Aster's sister roars from upstairs. "Where's my favorite skirt? Mum?"

Tracy's face falls a little. "Mum," she says dejectedly.

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"I would say good morning," she begins, "but I'm afraid to say it is anything but. I'm Officer Faerry, and I'll be one of the main coordinators of the search. We are looking for Jack Frost. He's a Caucasian male, and fifteen years old, with very light blond hair which appears almost – erm – 'white', and blue eyes" – the officer squints at her notepad – "which – and I quote – look sad but still kind." She raises her eyes to glance over the assembled people. "Erm. Yeah. Okay. So" – she fumbles through some paper set on a small table beside her – "this is his photo." She holds it up for the perusal of the crowd, and then grabs a whole pile of photos and shoves it into a civilian's hands with the quiet order to distribute them.

She raises her voice, as the people before her are muttering between themselves as they study Frost's picture. ("So young," sighs a father with a receding hairline.) "Jack Frost," she calls, "was last seen at his home in Burgess, Overland Street. He ran away from there about one and a half hours ago. His foster parent immediately notified us, of course, as one should in an emergency – erm – so" – she breaks off, clearly nervous – "thank you all for volunteering your help. Those assigned to Group A will search the designated quadrant one; those in Group B will search quadrant two; Group C will search quadrant three, and Group D will comb quadrant four. Please listen to your quadrant leaders so we don't search places multiple times. The key is efficiency. "

There are nods as people begin to shuffle in agitation, clearly ready to start.

A woman parts from a group of police officers, her eyes wide and white-knuckled despite her dark skin. Her boots crush the snow of the school lawn as she faces the volunteers. "He's still a child," Tooth says, "and it's freezing – the weather forecast predicts a cold front to hit by midday. We have to find him before that." Her mouth turns down and her eyelashes flutter like little fairy wings. "Please. This is … this is a nightmare."

Officer Faerry's lips press together. "This can easily become tragedy," she agrees. "If you find him, immediately call your quadrant leader. They will take it from there," she explains, and then calls: "Disperse!"

The crowd does so like trained dogs scenting blood in the wind.

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Jack Frost, a runaway, Aster muses, shuffling from where he stands next to Tracy. To think – this morning he was arguing with his sister over bathroom privileges, and now he'd somehow been roped into a search of the whole of Burgess on what was possibly one of the coldest days of his life.

Fuck. If he found that Snowflake before anyone else, he was going to give that kid a piece of his mind. I have places to be, things to do … unlike some people, he thinks, echoing his thoughts from that day in the library.

That Frost kid was just trouble wrapped in dejection. Aster crumples the photo he'd been handed. He knows what the dingo looks like.

"Disperse!" the officer calls.

With a sigh, he disperses. Jesus. Some days he feels like all he ever does is hop around like an energetic rabbit. It's too cold for this.

When is spring coming? he wonders mournfully.

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When there is the crunch of boots on snow, he raises his head.

"Frost," Aster snarls at him. "Do you 'ave any idea the trouble you've caused? Practically everyone is looking for you."

Of course, Jack thinks. "I didn't ask them to."
The other boy stares at him. He looks honestly surprised, for a moment. Then he blinks languidly. "Fuck me dead. What kind of excuse is that?" he breathes.

Jack is taken off-guard. He hesitates.

Aster pounces. "You're sittin' here, moping in the snow. You take off without a word, your" – he waves a hand – "whatever is losing her mind from worry. I have to walk around on one of the coldest days of the year to find you, and here you are, and your excuse is you didn't ask people to look for you? Can you clap? Then clap a cow's cunt on your head and hope a bull comes along and roots some sense into ya."

The simmering anger that he's been slowly breathing through swells. And bursts. "You know what?" Jack says, climbing to his feet. "I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you throwing me out of your seat or throwing apples at me or throwing your asshole attitude at me. You don't know who I am. Whatever you tell yourself" – his voice rises – "no-one made you search for me. You chose to do that. And I don't need a fucking excuse" – he thunders (god, it feels good) – "because I don't owe anything to anyone, not even her!"

"Oh, really?" Aster mocks. "From what I know, she took you in and fed your ungrateful ass, and now you repay her by running away like a coward, because that's what cowards do, they run away –"

Before he understands what he's doing, he's leapt. His fist smacks into Aster's sneering face. The Australian looks more surprised than he does hurt as he grazes his fingertips over the quickly reddening skin of his cheek.

"You know nothing" – Jack spits out – "about cowards who run away, about cowards who leave and never look back and think about the things – about the people – they leave behind. You know nothing." Jack retreats, stumbling backwards a bit over the snow, away from this man that makes him feel like – like his father.

"Oh?" Aster mocks. "Is that what you tell yourself? Poor Jack Frost, the boy nobody can understand. Poor Jack – he's had such a difficult life. Poor you," he spits, his lips pulling back, "no-one cares about you; you never do anything wrong; the world is forever against you. Is that what you tell yourself? That you're special? Who hurt you, dear child?" he laughs with dark amusement.

Jack twitches, his hands fisting.

"Was it daddy?" His intelligent eyes pin Jack down. "Was it mummy?" Realization dawns the longer he looks at Jack. "Was it both?"

He feels dizzy. His toes and fingers are full of pins-and-needles. He can't quite breathe right. And his head feels high, but he's never done drugs. Abruptly, he's over this. He's over Aster. He sucks in a breath so quickly and deeply that his teeth sting from the cold. "So what," he states spitefully. "My mummy ran off and my daddy beat me up each night because I was beautiful just like his whoring wife. And then he shot himself because he couldn't handle my ungrateful, coward ass, right, Aster? That must be why. And then my ass," he laughs bitterly. "Well, it got me in trouble so many times; what was one more time with Mr. Jode? And then my foster parent tells me she wants to be my new mummy, because god knows I need another parent to fuck me over again" – his voice is animated with false cheer – "so that I never forget how ungrateful I really am. Isn't that right, Aster?" he entreats, even dropping to his knees and raising his arms high in supplication. He steadfastly ignores the razor-sharp edge of desperation in his tone.

"Get up," Aster says roughly.

"I wouldn't want to act above my station," he coos, with that sickeningly open and subservient expression on his face.

"Get up," Aster says again, clearly unsettled.

"But sir," he says, "if I'm on my knees, all the easier for you to hit me. Go on. Hit me."

Aster stares at him. "Do you really want me to?" he asks eventually.

"Yes," Jack says readily. Please. Just hit me so I can hate you, too. So that I can hate myself. So I can hate the world. Hurt me.

A fist swings towards him. He doesn't blink. It pauses inches away from impact.

"You need to somehow stop being so angry. If you don't, it will eat you up inside, and eventually, you won't be able to hold it in," Aster says, eyes flashing. "And then you'll be both you dad and your mother: abuser and victim to yourself and eventually others, until one day you can't take it anymore, and you run away, or shoot yourself, and all anyone will ever remember of you is that you couldn't defeat your nightmares, and they'll sigh with pity, Jack. So get up; get over yourself and your past, and get it out."

The fist turns into an open palm. He grabs it more out of shame than appreciation. It pulls him up.

For some god-awful reason, it pulls him out, too.

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