A/N TEEN WOLF HAD GIVEN ME AN IDEA, AND NOBODY TALK TO ME ABOUT IT, DEAR GOD. GOD BLESS DYLAN O BRIAN'S ACTING.
I love Teen Wolf. I love the Teen Wolf AU for my muses. I never get to roleplay it *sigh*
On to the chapter, warnings are bloodiness and Jack having his hopes crushed.
Jack finally cried himself out. There wasn't any point to it. Bunny wasn't there for him to bury his tear-soaked face in his soft furry chest, or for North to take him to his office to talk it out and busy him with ice sculptures to lift his spirits, no Tooth to mother hen him, no Sandy to sit in silence with, silence he sometimes needed and appreciated, other times, Sandy told him stories...
His family wasn't here.
Jack wanted to go home. He was going home.
Jack slowly got back to his knees, lifting his head and looking at his hands. For a moment, he thought he would throw up again. But there was nothing in his stomach but a few measly trickles of water.
Any slight twitch of his hands sent waves of pain, but Jack took deep breaths, hissing through gritted teeth. He could do this. He had to.
Jack barely silenced his screeching as he ripped his hands free, blood gushing for a few moments as he did. Jack fell back onto the floor, his chest heaving as he clutched his hands close to his chest, shuddering and his wounds throbbing with pain. Jack focused on taking deep breaths, before using his elbows to get to his feet, suppressing his urge to retch.
He staggered to his feet, wobbling and swaying as he began to stumble across the room to the door. Jack fell against it, coughing and fumbling his mangled hand at the bolt. He had little to no control over it, and it took him nearly ten minutes to finally slide the heavy metal and pull open the door. Jack didn't bother shutting it as he stumbled out, the hot wind of Tartarus hitting his face.
The sky overhead was illuminated by the crimson mist reflecting off of the fires all around. Slate gray sand and gravel made up the ground, but mostly, it was ruins of temples and buildings and castles. Even in the distance, Jack could see wrecked ships from all eras, and the trees he recognized from somewhere...
He racked his memory for a moment until he realized they were from his crow hallucination.
Quickly pushing those thoughts away, Jack stumbled forward, not even looking behind him at the place he'd been imprisoned in, hearing the wind suck the door shut. His mangled feet stung and burned as the gritty gray stand embedded it's grains in his raw skin. He didn't see Phobos anywhere, good, so far so good...
Jack managed to get into the ruins of a temple, and had to stumble around broken columns, barely able to see where he was going. And that was why he didn't see what he was walking into until metal jaws snapped shut over his foot. Jack howled in pain, falling forward and barely catching himself as he fell. He felt as if maybe his ankle was broken, but he'd never broken it before; He wouldn't know.
Jack trembled as he turned his head to look at what had caught him and nearly collapsed at what he saw.
A steel jaw trap.
Phobos set traps in case he got out. They had to be all over the place.
The only result Jack got from trying to pull his leg free was a stronger flow of blood, and anguished cries of pain. Jack collapsed, gasping, before trying to sit up and fumbling his hands at the jaws. There had to be some way to disarm it, some way to get himself free. He had to be able to do it before Phobos came back.
The Guardians had been searching the North American continent for two days. Jack had been gone for five. Usually, he disappeared for a day or two, and that was normal. But when he didn't turn up on the third, they began to worry. Bunny was the first to start looking, and North checked for Jack's twinkling blue light on the globe, only to be horrified and summon each Guardian when he found it wasn't there at all.
They had not slept. They couldn't eat, not with the despairing knots in their stomachs. They all tried not to think about what could be happening to Jack. And they all knew, he was prone to nightmares, especially after his memories had returned. What if he was alone? No one to take him from his night terrors and hold him if he cried, or ease him back to sleep, no one to make sure he didn't get himself in trouble...
There were a number of spirits that would have a vengeance for Jack. But when they'd gone to Pitch and really rattled him for Jack's location, they were shocked to realize Pitch wasn't responsible for his disappearance. Pitch sneered at them as they went, telling them they were rid of a nuisance. He was answered with a swift crack in the nose by Bunny's boomerang. But their search continued. Day and night, they looked in caves and animal dens, ice caverns and forests, movie theatres, arcades, ice skating rinks, Jamie's house, but their Jack really was just gone.
Bunny couldn't hop or run anymore, he was so damn bone tired. So his feet dragged through the leaves as he hoarsely called Jack's name. They were in Utah now. Tooth was scanning from above. Bunny's droopy ears perked up as the buzz of her wings faded to silence, and he looked up in time to see her wobble in the sky and fall. "Whoa, there-!"
He caught the slim fairy easily, but nearly collapsed from his own exhaustion. Tooth was consciousness, and mumbling sleepily about the chewing gum prevents plague formation theories. Bunny shook her a bit, "C'mon, now, Tooth, don't go bonkers on us now. Up ya go." he gently set her down on her feet, keeping a paw on her waist as she wobbled and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry, Bunny." she sighed. "Just dozed off a bit."
"How're your wings?"
"Fine."
He crossed his arms, and his ears twitched in skepticism. Tooth sighed, her slender shoulders sulking and feathers ruffling. "They're pretty numb." she admitted. Bunny pinched his nose. Last time Tooth over worked herself, she'd really hurt her wings bad. He'd had to literally ground her. It was tough, playing doctor, being the only one with mildly helpful experience...
"It's time to take a break." he said finally. Tooth's pale face reddened, "No! No, we can't!"
"You gotta, you're dead on your feet...wings. Look, you get some sleep, you and North, Sandy and I will keep looking, and we'll switch."
"But we won't be able to cover enough area!"
"It'll be fine for a few hours. But we won't be any good to Jack if we work ourselves to death over this. We haven't even eaten yet, Tooth. We need to eat, you know."
"We're immortal."
"Meaning mortal illness, age, and weapons can't hurt us. But we can hurt ourselves. Starving ourselves counts."
"It's not always like that. It's not like that for..."
She stopped talking, feeling an all too familiar now pang in her heart. Jack's immortality was different because he used to be human. A mortal weapon can harm him. He'd been accidentally shot by a hunter before, during his years alone. Luckily, the bullet had just grazed his calf. But he couldn't get sick unless it was his own fault, like over working himself, or eating bad food. Though Jack ate considerably less than a normal human...he never liked to talk about why. Mostly because he had made sure his mother and sister were fed before he was. Even so, he had to go home to his thin family with their cracked lips and tired eyes. And Emma's hopeful smile...
Bunny sighed, reaching around and pulling her close just to rub the spot between her wings soothingly. He knew it got pretty sore and tense there. The amount of times Tooth ended up pulling something or spraining something when she'd been in the field..."Sleep." he ordered, smiling emptily. "Or I'll have to put you out."
"Threatening me now?"
"It's for your own good."
Tooth sighed with relent, "Fine. But I can't make it back to the palace."
"Warren, then." Bunny said, tapping his foot and using up a lot of energy to open up a tunnel. He groggily guided Tooth through it and they meandered along until they made it back. Bunny waved off his concerned little egg helpers and the stone guardians, and after checking over Tooth's wings again and deciding placing a cold compress on her back between them was best, they both retired. Bunny curled up in a next of long grass and moss, Tooth just laid on her stomach on the ground with her hands tucked under her cheek and fell asleep like that. They were so exhausted that their bodily functions simply over powered their worried minds and put them out.
But they weren't tired enough to not have nightmares about what could be happening to Jack.
Pitch lifted his head slowly, something suddenly coming to life inside him. Living underground, in filth and darkness, among centipedes and spiders and worms, he had grown accustomed to this life style. His robes filthy and more modest, the v-neck thrown away. Instead, a ratty cloak draped around his shoulders and neck, and he'd kept the robe style, but he seemed more bundled up now. Dirt was caked his skin and hair, packed under his finger and toe nails, thick as clay. His gold and ash eyes had grown dull, as they no longer had any use anymore, in this darkness.
Pitch Black was nearly blind.
He had become mindless, hardly eating. Sometimes he plucked a spider up to crunch on or strangled some poor little mole and picked out it's liver and heart and licked it's blood from his fingers. Not even Fearlings or Nightmares bothered with him anymore. But something utterly delicious and nearly foreign hit his nose. A smell he so desperately longed for, the stench that made him prolong his killings of small animals. Why break their necks and make their end quick? That was no fun. No, he loved to squeeze and squeeze and then loosen up a little...and do it again and again before he finally put an end to it. That smell was fear. And none so trivial of a lowly under ground rodent or small bird, it's survival instincts screaming for release, for life. This succulent, bitter sweet, hot taste barely touching his tongue was some of a higher quality.
And Pitch smiled, showing his now much sharper and dirtier teeth, a delighted hiss slipping past his cracked, chapped lips. He knew what it was now, and he had to find it's source. He had to feed again. And whatever unfortunate Guardian was having a nightmare had better swap their bed for a silver platter.
