A/N: The song theme of this fic is Young, by Vallis Alps.
The edges of Jack's consciousness came back piece by piece. His mind slotting together the here and now. It started to bleed into him; the sound of a crackling fire, the smell of spiced tea, the warmth of fingers in his hair.
Jack begrudgingly opens his eyes, blinking against the soft light of the fireplace.
Since when did North have a fireplace?
The fingers running through his hair paused and then pressed gently into his scalp. Jack hums, relaxing further as he closes his eyes again. He was on a couch, he was sure, lying on his side with his head on Pitch's lap. It didn't make any sense but it also made perfect sense, you know? Pitch was quiet for a few minutes, continuing to massage through his scalp before he spoke.
"How do you feel, Jack?"
Jack sighed, giving another hum before deciding it was time to get up. He winced, his stomach sore as he carefully sits. A blanket falls to his lap and he tenderly raises his sweater, seeing the giant blossoming bruise on his stomach and side.
"I've done all I can, but the bruise will have to heal on its own." Jack lets the sweater fall down and he scoots back to be leaning back against Pitch's side.
"Didn't even know spirits could bruise." He grumbles, holding onto his stomach. Pitch moves, just slightly, turning so Jack could more comfortably rest against him, now leaned back partly on his chest while Pitch laid his arm across the back of the couch. "How long have I been out?" He asks, carefully taking the teacup Pitch held out for him. It was warm and he would have thought warmth would have scarred him for life with the heat that tore through him before but evidentially, Jack was okay with Pitch's heat and the heat of the things he provided him.
"A few hours."
Jack hums, relaxing back, wiggling until he fit just right in the little crook Pitch made for him. He'll gladly stay here forever, cloaked in nothing but darkness and light from a fireplace with the smell of sweet tea and Pitch's deep scent of pine and white fir.
When Jack finishes his tea, Pitch takes the cup and sets it down without so much as jarring Jack from his little nook. Jack only moves to sit better enough to lay his head on Pitch's shoulder. Moments later he felt Pitch's fingers in his hair, massaging into his scalp and he hums in contentment.
"Ah hem," A voice cleared their throat and Jack looked over the back of the couch to the open archway. Bunny stood there, looking properly sorry and contrite, rubbing the back of his neck and ears pulled back. "Jack..? Can I, uh, talk to you a minute?" He asks, hunched over compunctiously.
Jack twisted to the right, glancing at Pitch. He meets his eye and gives a shrug of his shoulder.
Your choice.
Jack didn't really wanna leave the spot he was sitting at, though. He probably already knew the talk about to happen, anyway. Something about how he was sorry, he thought they were fighting, and that Pitch purposefully disappeared and hit Jack. Heaving a great mental sigh, Jack extracted himself from Pitch's side and winced only slightly when he twisted his torso to slip off the couch and onto his shoeless feet. He meets Bunny just outside the arch and he found it funny how they were pretty much cloaked in darkness while where Pitch was, was bathed in the light of the glow of the fireplace. It reached where they were too, but it was so much dimmer.
"Hey, mate…" Bunny scratches the back of his head and Jack folds his arms over his stomach for a lack of better things to do with them. "I'm, er, sorry about that…" Jack nods, not in much of a mood to relive what he knows would happen.
Also, where the hell was his staff? He thinks idly. It was surely nearby. Probably somewhere near Pitch. He felt oddly naked and unarmed without it. In front of Bunny, of all people.
"Really sorry.." Bunny repeats, not seeming to know how to handle the situation. Jack nods again, feeling drained from the conversation already. "Jack.." He starts. There it is. Took a moment, Jack thought. The guilt left his face as he readied to blame it on something else.
"Save it." Jack says curtly. Bunny narrows his eyes at him.
"How can you not see that he did that on purpose?" Bunny hissed. And it was kinda funny, how Bunny thought that if Jack didn't think Pitch did it on purpose, he would think Bunny did and that definitely wasn't what he had thought.
It was just a freak accident and he knew Pitch wouldn't have moved if he had seen it coming. If he didn't that first time, why would he now? Pitch was strong enough to stop the incoming boomerang with one hand. And if he could do that, and not get crippled like Jack, why would he choose to have Jack get hit?
Pitch wouldn't. Not this Pitch. It was too bad Bunny didn't see it like that.
"He didn't." Jack said. He was frustrated, but he felt oddly calm about it. Like he'd somehow matured through osmosis just by being near Pitch. He could slightly understand what it might have looked like to the outside world. Jack was bolting to Pitch, Pitch was smirking, they might have looked like they were attacking each other, having some altercation. Barely. "Pitch wouldn't do that." He says with conviction; steady, sure.
"Of course he bloody would!" Bunny hisses. For all his supposed years of wisdom, he has not matured. Jack sighs out loud this time, rubbing his face. "Do you really believe he's changed? How naïve are you?" Jack shook his head, feeling a headache coming on. Could spirits even get headaches? It could be the lack of belief… But Jack didn't have a large belief-base to begin with, so losing half his belief base doesn't affect him as any of the guardians losing half of their belief-base.
Bunny just… couldn't stop living in the past, could he?
But Bunny also didn't know Pitch like he did. Couldn't even fathom how he would feel; to fall from grace, lose his memory, again and again, and then regain it at the cost of losing another. To find out how far from grace he'd fallen after millennia have passed. That you've lost your family; wife and daughter, friends, and were alone in every sense of the word.
Jack could.
He might not have fallen from grace; he wasn't some big-shot general whose duty was the reason he fell from grace, but Jack knows the feeling of being alone for centuries. Of being snubbed and ignored. He didn't have memories either, when he was brought to life as a spirit. The guardians didn't care about him until the Man in the Moon choose him to be a guardian. Why? Because one day Man in the Moon decided to bring him into this word because he would one day be useful in the grand scheme of things?
That's not for me! He had said to being a guardian. He'd lost his family, or his family had lost him. He'd lost his memory, his sister. Jack knows how it feels, so fresh in his mind.
Jack sighs, shaking his head as he rubs his face.
"Get out of here!" Bunny growls and it startles Jack until he follows the line of his sight to Pitch, leaning casually against the other pillar. Pitch looked unimpressed and completely unafraid.
"I think you've outstayed your welcome." Pitch says levelly as he pushes off the arch and steps closer to them. Bunny raised on his hind legs, but it did little to intimidate, even as he slightly towered over Pitch.
"Jack." Bunny says, more like commands, like Jack would somehow move behind and appease him and it rubs him the wrong way. He and Bunny had never been close. When they had finally gotten amicable, Jack had screwed up Easter and the rest was history. He might've made Jaime believe in Easter again, but how much did that mean, really, against centuries of antagonism and provocation?
"Jack?" Pitch asks, giving a little lilt in his voice that sounded more like a suggestion. Jack was once again faced with how much he related to Pitch more than he did to Bunny. Taking a breath, Jack steps closer, putting a hand on each of their chests and pushing them apart. Or rather, pushing Bunny back.
"Don't worry about it." He says, dropping his hands, staying by Pitch's side and Bunny actually looked affronted. It would have been funny, if this were a funny situation.
"What? Jack—"
"I'm fine." Jack says again, turning to leave. He glances at Pitch's face from the corner of his eye as he passed. He looked to see if Pitch would be smirking, or smug, because if he was then Bunny would be right and he was playing right into Pitch's hands. But he wasn't. Pitch looked at Bunny with pity in his features, like he felt sorry for the rabbit that he couldn't get over his own ineptitude in order to keep Jack within his orbit.
Pitch turns away from the rabbit after Jack passes, like he was creating a physical barrier between him and Bunny and Jack breathed a little easier as he came back to the couch.
"Have you seen my staff?"
Pitch comes around to the side he was on, picking it up from where it lay, in plain sight, against the opposite wall and hands it over, seeming to watch him carefully. It made his skin crawl; not Pitch, but this place. With Bunny everywhere, waiting for Pitch to screw up at every turn even though there was nothing to screw up. Pitch seemed on the verge of asking if he was okay so Jack spoke first.
"Wanna get out of here?"
Jack takes a deep breath, feeling his lungs fill with fresh, icy air as he stands on the rooftop of North's workshop. There was a breeze, barely there but he felt it tickle his neck and ruffle his clothes. He hung onto the pole at the center, relishing in the sunlight with a moonless sky and closed his eyes. Another moment of stillness and he hums to himself, spinning in a circle around the Kievan Rus top as he waits for Pitch.
With little persuasion, Pitch had agreed to help him with a diversion to get a little something that was instrumental to their escape.
Well, not escape, but whatever. Felt like a prison with Pitch under such careful scrutiny.
Jack smiles to himself; this was the most fun he's had in ages. He laughs to himself as he thinks back to just a few minutes before. He and Pitch make quite a mischievous team, didn't they?
"Wanna help me steal something?"
Jack pulls out the item from his jacket pocket, holding it up to the sun as if to say, look at my treasure, the key to our freedom. He admires how the glass of the globe shines, twinkles like sprinkles of glitter were imbedded in the thick of it. North's workshop stares back at him from inside the snow globe.
"What do you want to steal?" Pitch asks, interest piqued, eyes narrowed in mirth and the urge for shenanigans and it sparked a new sense of adventure in Jack.
So into admiring the globe that he did not notice another body sliding up to the dome top. Pitch held on with his opposite arm facing Jack. Jack glances at Pitch and grins brightly as Pitch pulled a snowglobe from the sleeve of his shirt like a magician and holds it up by Jack's. Jack leans a little closer to Pitch and when he looks up, he's barely half a foot away, face-to-face. Pitch looks back at him, his smirk softening.
"Ready to get out of here?" Jack asks, letting go the pole. Jack shoves his snow globe back into his pocket. He still wore one of North's giant sweaters, magicked to fit him comfortably. Jack smiles, hand perched gingerly over Pitch's, brining the globe closer to him. He glances at Pitch again, catching his eye, and smirks. "The Tooth Palace." He whispers into the glass and watches as the workshop turns to Tooth's towers in the Himalayas. Jack shakes the snowglobe, the flurry overtaking the scene and he throws it in front of them. He catches Pitch look on in wonder and boldly threads his fingers through Pitch's and tugs on his arm, flying them through the portal.
