Cheerio, Darlings! For once, a reasonable break in between chapters, right? Ah, I miss high school. On my old account, I was able to update almost every day. Of course, that story was just humor-based with a tiny pinch of plot, so, yeah, that works.
But I want to make something clear now. I'm aware that I've made Bunny slightly stalkerish, and a lot of you might not like what I have him do in this chapter. How I see the Guardians in this story is that they have a very much black and white morality. You're either good or you're evil. And once they decide that you need help, they're going to help you, whether you like it or not.
But I'm not saying that it isn't an admirable trait! There are a lot of people out there who desperately need help, but refuse to ask for it. What you're seeing here is when that admirable trait goes south. The Guardians see Jack as a child (though he is eighteen), and they've had issues with Pitch in the past. Therefore, they're going overboard in their best attempt to "save" him.
Bunny seems to be the most impulsive of the group, as well as the one who hates Pitch the most vehemently. Jack's also this huge mystery to him, one that he just can't leave be, so he justifies it to himself by saying that he's helping Jack. Factor in the fact that Jack has always done his best to mess around with Bunny and make him bad, and you get an overreaction.
Pitch is well aware of the hostile nature the Guardians have towards him. Normally, he'd probably just try to avoid the situation, but Jack needs him specifically. Jack doesn't want someone to just tell him everything's alright, he doesn't want dreams and wonder and whimsy, he wants the straight truth. Pitch is blunt, and while he does his best to encourage Jack to keep working towards getting better, it's different than what the Guardians would do.
I'm sorry, I'm making a mess of this. Suffice it to say that I'm not trying to paint the Guardians as the bad guys here. In a different story, they'd be the heroes they believe themselves to be. But because they don't know the full story, because they're blinded by their perceptions, they've just blundered into a gigantic mess. (Kinda like Gaston in Beauty & the Beast, in just about any other fairytale, he'd be the valiant hero coming in to save the day).
They're just in the wrong story for their personalities.
So, don't get mad at me, and please enjoy the story!
He was slamming on the ice, but it wouldn't break.
WHY wouldn't it break?
He can see through it like it was glass, and he half wishes that he couldn't.
Two faces look back at him, crying. Two brunettes, both with bright brown eyes that pleaded with him.
He has to save them. He can't let them...
"You left us."
No.
"You left us to drown."
"You left us to die."
No.
No, he didn't.
"Jack. You did this."
He stuffs his hand into his mouth, chewing on it desperately as the faces become disfigured with disgust and rage.
"You just HAD to go ice-skating."
"It HAD to be that day, couldn't have been any other time."
Please, just stop.
"What's the matter, Jackie-boy? Can't face what you did?"
"You're cursed now, you know, right? All of what's happening, it's karma coming back."
There was nothing he could do. He had tried. He had tried so hard.
"Emma was always my favorite. Emma didn't cause trouble like you always did."
"How many times were you in detention, Jack? Every day right?"
It finally hits him, it's just a dream. Yes, that's right, just a dream. All he needs to do is wake up. He just has to wake up.
That's all.
Just wake up.
Wake up.
WAKE UP!
He lets the ice shatter beneath his feet, and dives down into the freezing water. He lets it engulf him, and he opens his mouth, breathing in the freezing cold water. It burns his lungs, and he coughs, but grins as the freezing temperature leaves him numb. It's almost over. This nightmare is almost done.
But something has him by the ankle. Something strong is pulling him back to the surface. His legs leave the water first, and he immediately regains feeling there, his legs stinging in the frigid air. His rear is next, and he chokes back a gasp as the small of his back is exposed to the cold.
His head comes last, and he is coughing and hacking the fluid out of his lungs. He is still rising, impossibly high, until he is high enough to look into the taller pair of brown eyes.
"Running away, Jackie-boy?"
"Such a coward."
Go away. Just please, go away.
Why can't he wake up? Why won't he wake up?
What's wrong with him?
Besides the obvious.
"Stop running away from us, Jackie-boy."
"Coward."
"Freak."
STOP IT!
The little girl is grabbing him by his hair, pulling him back down to her level, yanking painfully at his scalp.
"You left us to die."
He had been trying to find help.
"You LEFT us."
He can't do anything except scream as the memories swarm his brain.
Ice-skating accident. He just wanted to skate. Was that so wrong? After weeks of being cooped up indoors, he just wanted to go outside and have fun.
It was too thin. That should've been obvious to him from the start. His mother had always said that he was more like a winter sprite instead of a human boy. He normally had a very good sense of good ice versus the nasty stuff. He could spot a patch of black ice on the road from fifty feet away. He could tell how thick the ice was just from touching it. They had had a warm spell a few days before. If he had taken the time to check it, he would've known. But he just wanted to skate. He just HAD to skate. He should've known better.
All three of them went through the ice. The ice had cracked under Emma's feet first. All three of them had stopped moving the moment the crack had rung out. They all knew what it meant. His mother was panicking, but every single time that she stepped forward, trying to get to her little girl, the ice would crack again, sending her scrambling backwards. And Jack, all he could do was watch in horror as the spider-web cracks grew and spread. He suddenly couldn't take it anymore, slipping out of his skates, and sprinting lightly across the ice towards Emma. His mother had cried out, and ran for both of them. The ice couldn't take it. They were all dumped into the lake.
Marie had died. They managed to get out, somehow. He couldn't remember how, exactly. But they were on the shore, huddling against the chill of the wind. They were all so pale. Emma was so tiny, so frail. His mother had been injured by the ice, and a long laceration ran up her leg, her red blood the only color in the frozen landscape. He remembered staring at her leg, and seeing the bone inside. He had been scared. He was the only one who could move, and he ran for help.
Hypothermia. He hadn't stood a chance. He took too long to find someone. By the time he had brought help, both of them were in a critical state. He remembered coming back to see his mother huddled around his little sister, desperately trying to share body heat. She had been dead before reaching the hospital.
Emma died a few weeks later, same cause. They had put the two in the same room, and he had kept watch over her unconscious body until her heart monitor had flat-lined. She never woke up.
Jackson appeared to pull through. The nurses had cooed over him, praising his strength for making it through. Up until Emma's death, he had flourished under their care. He was their darling little boy, the little kid in Ward 5 with the biggest blue eyes they had ever seen. The young lad who sat by his sister's side, telling her humorous stories, and then waiting anxiously for her to laugh. But she never did.
And then...nothing. All three of them had died in that accident. All three of them had left the world behind. And it had all been his fault. He was the one to blame. And he's been paying the price ever since.
It's like the guy just vanished off the face of the Earth.
Jack wasn't at his own house, so Bunny decided that it wouldn't hurt to check out Pitch's place.
The two seemed fairly close, after all, for an immature kid and a bogeyman. And hey, if Jack wasn't there, he could at least let off some steam by yelling at Pitch. Maybe, if he's lucky, it would escalate into an actual physical confrontation.
Bunny really needs to blow off some steam.
A scream pierces the air as he comes to the steps, and he immediately is on high alert. It prolongs, only being broken by slight moments for a breath, a young boy's scream.
Jack. It has to be.
Aster throws himself against the door, hammering at it. That monster's doing something to Jack, he knows it. He has to get in, he has to save him.
He can hear shouting from inside, that annoying British drawl of the older man barking orders to someone else inside. But he can't hear precisely what's happening over the agonizing scream.
The door cracks open, held at the angle by a silver security chain. All he can catch before he slams his shoulder into the door is a pair of wide forest green eyes that flinch back as he hits the door over and over until the chain gives way.
He explodes into the house, bolting past the young girl who hurries after him, yelling something at him.
He doesn't hear her. All of his focus is on helping Jack, helping that stupid brat.
He bursts into the room, Jack is still screaming, and the Nightmare King has a firm grip on Frostbite's hand, and is hissing something into his ear.
And E. Aster Bunnymund does something that he's wanted to do ever since he first saw that smug bastard.
He body-slams him.
Emily runs to Jack, pulling him close as she watches her father wrestle with the strange intruder in their home. The man is much larger than her father is, at least in bulk, but her dad appears to be doing a good job of fighting back. She murmurs to Jack, stroking his hair as she stares at the fist fight on the floor in front of her. With her free hand, she fumbles in the pocket of her sweatshirt for her cellphone.
She needs to call the police.
She flinches as her father gets socked in the jaw and falls to the floor.
"Daddy," she whispers, as she finally yanks out the phone, preparing to dial as the stranger approaches them.
A red blur moves through the open doorway, tackling the crazy man to the floor. The red blur is followed by a woman dressed in numerous colors and a short golden man that she recognizes as a colleague of her father's. He turns his face to her, and winks.
Professor Mansnoozie walks over, and just barely brushes a finger across Jack's shoulder. The screaming immediately stops, and bright blue eyes shoot open. He leans heavily against her, panting. She can feel where the back of his sleeping shirt is soaked through in cold sweat, but she doesn't move away.
He needs her there. That much is obvious.
The man in red is all but sitting on the intruder, muttering, "Bunny, calm down," in a strangely accented voice. The woman is over there as well, but lecturing the man into submission.
But no one goes to her father, who is struggling to his feet. She sits there, conflicted. Her daddy needs her...she hasn't referred to him as that for a long time. "Dad", "Father", both of these were fine for the older girl. She hasn't thought of him as "Daddy" since middle school.
But Jack needs her to. Professor Mansnoozie notes her internal conflict, and sits himself behind Jack, wrapping a short arm around the boy.
She bolts, she runs across the room to her Daddy, pulling his arm around her shoulder, and helping him finish getting to his feet.
He smiles at her, and tousles her hair with his free hand as she walks him to wear Jack is, but she can see how the blood floods to his normally pale cheek, and knows that he's going to have a monster bruise tomorrow. She helps him to sit down, and he immediately takes Jack's hand again, rubbing gently before taking the boy's pulse. She stands in front of him, between the intruders and her daddy, protectively, but not before dropping a light kiss on the injured cheek.
He smiles at her, thanking her, before turning his attention back to the shaken boy, who is finally losing his expression of horror, and now just looking confused.
He's not the only one. The intruders have some major explaining to do.
