Disclaimer: I do not own RotG, and I am not making money off of this.
Warning(s): Entrance of the Walking Cliche, art, invasion of privacy
The ice was vibrating. Jolting out of his trance-like state, Jack leaned away from the ice pillar behind him, and realized that someone was pounding on the ice plug he'd left at the known entrance to Pitch's lair. He noted absently that Pitch seemed to be less afraid, but more empty, than he had been the last time Jack had drifted into full awareness, and he firmly extricated himself from the Boogeyman's grip. Intending to open a path and deal with the intrusion, Jack had just enough time to form a protective shell around his disabled partner when a hissing noise alerted him that the interloper was no longer outside. The ice directly under the opening was melting, unnaturally quick, and Jack's surprise was complete when a lithe young woman danced into his hollow. She had long, snarled hair that dared color to claim it, shining in some indescribable hue over the silver links of her chain mail. Somehow, the two remained separate, despite how easily her hair seemed to tangle. She came to a halt before Jack, and he had time to notice the strange little mushrooms popping up in her path before a short sword was at his throat.
"I can't believe you didn't invite me!"
Were those… tears? In her eyes? Jack slid his fingers between the sword and his neck, and she let him push it away without resistance, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Everyone knows stupid Cupid and his stupid family wasting away on Mount Olympus, but you didn't even think of inviting me to your club, did you?" And she was pouting now. Great. Jack had a crazy spirit and a mindless Boogeyman in an ice box in a hole in the ground. What could go wrong?
By club, he was pretty sure she meant the group they'd been gathering. Looking at the way she sheathed her sword in a fluid motion, tears still sparkling at the corners of her eyes, Jack shrugged wearily. Pitch would kill him for this when he was back in his right mind, "We just wanted to have a cooler group before we invited you, but if you think we're good enough now, we'd love for you to join up."
"I'm not stupid," she sniffed, but the waterworks seemed to be on hold for the time being, "You probably don't even know what I am."
"Um…" He had been reading all those books about spirits lately, but only the 451st pages. Nevertheless, he could at least guess. She had an ethereal aura about her, and that indescribable, matted hair down to her knees, a fierce disposition- some horrible mood swings, too, it looked like- so she was probably some kind of fairy. What language were they speaking? Romanian? Plus, she'd danced her way in. Maybe… "Iele?" He cleared his throat and hastily amended, "You're Iele, obviously."
Her hair seemed to actually settle around her and the sniff this time was haughty, "Well, at least you know that much." She peeked around Jack curiously at the dome he'd thrown up around Pitch, "What's that?"
"Nothing important," Jack replied unthinkingly and mentally winced. He really needed to get a handle on this conversation, "Why do you want to… be part of our club?"
This was the wrong question to ask, as the tears began trickling down her cheeks once again, "My… My little sisters won't wake up. All six, they're going dormant because-" she hiccupped, and despite himself, Jack was impressed at how quickly she descended into sobs, rubbing at her eyes as her nose turned as red as her bare feet in the snow.
"The Guardians hog all the belief, huh?" Jack bent to her level, hesitantly putting a hand on her shoulder, despite the metal links of her chain mail being heated from the proximity to her skin. "I get it now. You want to help us get it back."
She nodded, still near wailing, and Jack debated his next move silently before hugging the Romanian fairy. The heat of it was like holding a burning ember, but Jack supposed he was just spoiled from Pitch's eerie low temperature. Afore mentioned Boogeyman was still, just visible through the ice dome as a splotch of darkness, and so far, he was still asleep. Jack didn't think an Iele, so used to wearing her heart on her sleeve would have the willpower to deceive him for more than a sentence, but even as he embraced the young-seeming spirit, her sobs finally trailing off, he didn't think he was going to be revealing Pitch's state any time soon. He brushed the tears from her face into a hand, and crushed the drops he'd frozen, blowing the sparkling remnants up above them and her eyes were wide, fixed on the display even as she pushed away from him with a murmured, "You're cold."
Dredging up a grin, Jack replied, "Of course. I'm Jack Frost."
She eyed him, a dribble of mucus still clinging to her face (Jack wasn't wiping that off), "Is that why you're so solid, too? You're frozen?" The question was more childish than he'd expected, especially from one of her, er… voluptuous figure, but eerily perceptive, all the same.
"Ah, yeah." Trying to explain that whatever he was came from an amalgamation of a dying or dead human and an innocently passing spirit didn't seem worth the effort. Though, technically both of them "lived on" in a way, through him… The thought was oddly discomfiting and Jack changed the subject, "So, what do you like to do?" Her progressively more enthused reply was only half-acknowledged as Jack tried and failed to think of some way to get her to go. In the end, he surrendered to the conversation, sitting atop Pitch's dome protectively, until the sun's light had swept the floor and trailed off. She stopped mid-sentence and declared that she would go guard her sisters now, and that it was too cold for her to visit again.
"I expect an invitation to the next club meeting," she informed him, and leaped, in one go, to the lip of the cavern's entrance in the ceiling, vanishing from sight.
For a moment, Jack stared at where the three foot tall Iele had stood, and mentally estimated exactly how much taller the cavern ceiling, plus the tunnel to the hole, actually stood. Pitch can be mad all he likes, he sent ice shards scattering outward and across the floor as he took down the ice dome around Pitch, I think she'll do great.
Kneeling down, Jack snapped his fingers in front of Pitch, and the Boogeyman turned his empty eyes to Jack, fingers twitching restlessly. More response than however long ago the fiery Romanian had barged in, and infinitely less fear. Time to get him further into the lair. After all, a fearful Pitch would at least flee from enemies. This Pitch? Jack hoisted him up, and maneuvered the unhelpful spirit onto his back. This Pitch would offer no resistance as they tore him into little bits. The ice parted before them, crackling and shrinking back before sprouting again behind them and filling in their path. Finally exiting the ice-filled cavern, Jack wondered if increasing his own weight would do anything to lessen the weight on his back. After a moment of consideration, there didn't seem to be any basis for it, though lessening his own weight didn't seem entirely advisable either. Putting the thought aside, Jack decided to just be glad that the tunnels were sloped mostly downward.
The further down they went, the more listless Fearlings came into view, strewn about the walls and floors like so much confetti. Jack was careful not to step on any of them. While Pitch might not feel it, from the way some of them were phasing slightly through the surfaces they rested on, he might just lose a foot inside them.
As they reached the lower levels, Jack hoisted Pitch up the side of a broken down, wooden tank and dumped him in the cockpit. I gently and considerately put down my trusted companion, Jack mentally corrected, checking that Pitch didn't land in an awkward position and rearranging his limbs until he was sitting normally in the driver's seat. Surveying his work, Jack couldn't help but wonder if this emptiness was supposed to happen. Obviously, he couldn't ask the Guardians. There weren't many others to whom he would reveal Pitch's state, either. From what he could remember, the core-intensification was meant to be temporary, but they hadn't specified whether there was an adjustment period. For a moment, Jack was distracted by the number of multi-syllabled words in his thought process.
"Focus," he muttered to himself, crouching on the lip of the tank over Pitch in an entirely-not-creepy sort of way.
I don't know how much time has passed, he admitted to himself, but if this lasts for another day, I'm going to kidnap Bunnymund. The planning felt like progress and a little of the helplessness eased, I'll keep him in a sack. Then, remembering Pitch's utter terror and the kangaroo's attempt to distance them, Jack scowled, No, maybe I'll keep him in an ice Easter egg. It'll even be pretty.
He'd have to, of course, change locations for this little feat, or the other Guardians would be on him in a flash, but… The hastiness of their retreat niggled at him. All he'd done was fill the room with ice- deadly, spiked ice, yes – but not anything that couldn't be broken and pushed back if the Guardians had been at full power.
Unless, they were still recovering.
Shaking the thoughts from his head, Jack settled down to wait. He'd try and keep track of the hours, and hope that Pitch would snap out of it before he did something stupid. Like kidnap Bunnymund.
That's just Plan B, he reminded himself, and silence closed in.
"I wish you'd wake up."
xo0O0ox
Much earlier than Jack received his unexpected visitor, the Guardians had regrouped at the North Pole.
"Why won't he listen?" Toothiana ranted, tears pricking at her eyes as her fellow Guardians stood and sat in various poses of defeat around the room. "Pitch is leading him around by the nose, if he thinks that… that creep can be family to him. All he'll do is use him up! Or worse," Toothiana deflated, "possess him." Sandy's expression closed off entirely.
"Maybe, we'll have got Jack thinking," Bunnymund offered half-heartedly, but he could recall the rage on Jack's face at Pitch's condition, and the ice closing in.
"Is possible," North conceded, large hands unmoving in his lap, eyes on the ceiling, "But I am thinking we have underestimated Jack's feelings for Pitch." He could feel the other Guardians' gazes fall on him and he sighed, "The boy will have to learn in hard way how Pitch really is. We cannot help him out of this, because his trust in Boogeyman is greater than trust in us."
"But…" Toothiana, for all her ranting on Jack's uncooperative stubbornness, looked desolate at this idea, wings going still as her feet touched the ground. Her voice was small as she insisted, "Pitch will hurt him."
North patted her shoulder, wondering at the innocence his fellow Guardians retained even after the horrors and battles they'd met unflinchingly many a time before, and hating to stain another piece of it even as he said softly, "So did we."
Another moment of silence, and Bunnymund hopped hesitantly forward, "I hate to bring it up, but with Jack still attached to the bloody wanker, it might make a difference, what with them trying to gather any spirits they can muster together."
What is it? Sandy's little fists clenched.
"Do you remember that yellow-green goop I was looking into? I found it checking out the increasing spiritual activity in…"
xo0O0ox
"Well, at least I can be completely certain now that you aren't waiting to stab me in the back in a moment of weakness," a familiar voice floated from the tank's cockpit some hours after Jack had broken his promise to himself and zoned out. Springing from his convenient crouched position, Jack tackled the unsurprised Boogeyman, forcing a grunt out of his impromptu target.
"Thank God," he muttered into Pitch's middle, as the elder spirit weakly patted Jack's back.
"I'm not sure any God would be pleased at my recovery," Pitch noted, almost uncomfortably and Jack looked up at him.
"Are you feeling all awkward and in need of another familial trust lecture? Because, seriously, by now-"
"No," Pitch covered Jack's mouth promptly, "Please, no." He felt Jack's smirk against his palm and returned a mock snarl. Shortly, he closed his eyes to gather his thoughts, and said, with exaggerated enunciation, "My pride may be wounded but I am completely clear on that topic and will not require any further disturbing little bonding moments from now on."
The lick was not entirely unexpected, but Pitch still drew his hand back with an expression of disgust; one which was matched on Jack's face as he wiped at his tongue viciously, even getting partway up and spitting over the side of the tank. "Ew."
"What do you have to complain about?" Pitch asked, trying and failing to crack the frozen saliva from his hand.
"Dead person hand," Jack managed, his face contorted in chagrin and the other snorted at his partner's duress from his temporary memory lapse. "Still tastes like licorice, too."
"Do you not like licorice?" Pitch found himself asking, and Jack's irritation found outlet. For once, Pitch was the one who had to flee, vanishing into the shadows and leaving laughter behind him.
"Oh, come on!" Jack sprang from the tank and stalked about the perimeter predatorily, "Why do you get to have the perfect hiding power?"
Hands slid onto his shoulders, "Because I use it best," and the shadows had him captive in seconds, his staff knocked from his hand and skittering across the floor away from him. Oh, right, Jack reminded himself sardonically, how did I not remember the sheer number of Fearlings littering the floor? "I rather wish I'd listened to you and been using it earlier."
A double take was the proper and necessary response, Jack was sure, but Pitch had his face turned innocently to the ceiling, stoic as he could make it. Pitch's shadows hadn't released him yet, and Jack suddenly suspected he didn't want the frost sprite forcing eye contact. "Well," Jack drew out the word, settling on, "Good."
Finally meeting Jack's eye with a glimmer of amusement, Pitch snarked, "Good? Really?"
"Yeah," Jack shrugged as well as he could in the shadows' grasp, "Good." Abruptly, the shadows melted away and Jack found himself unconstrained, feet touching the floor.
Jack's staff somehow made its way to Pitch's hand and the Boogeyman handed it back to him, with something approaching a smile, "Good, then."
Following the brief period of soppiness, the two of them got back to business. Jack put his stalker tendencies to good use and hunted down the nearest current newspaper in the town of Burgess.
"It's been six days, in all," he reported, a little shocked he'd managed to sit still for so long.
"And the Guardians didn't come back to talk again?" Pitch asked, looking up with surprise from the weird little pictures he'd been cutting into the earth with one shadow talon as he thought.
"No," Jack drew out the word, "And I have a good news-bad news situation…"
Expression default to everyday scowl. "What."
Jack hopped over the pictures, crouching to examine them instead of face Pitch, "Well the good news is that we gained an ally while you were uh… out of it."
"Indisposed," Pitch suggested for future use, and prompted irritably, "What horrible fault or condition do they have?"
"It's an Iele," Jack mumbled, tracing the snowflake drawn in lines dug into the ground with a finger.
"Oh, Jack," Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut. The hand came away in an open, almost pleading gesture, "Do we really need another flighty spirit prone to mood swings? Iele are worse than you, and you're an elemental!"
"Her sisters are fading," Jack returned, "And don't throw stones in a glass house."
"How many of her sisters?" Pitch asked wearily, half-resigned to the idea already.
"Six."
Pitch's gaze snapped to his, "Six? All six?"
"Um, yeah," Jack scooted back a bit from the intense stare, "Is that important?"
"She should be verging on comatose," Pitch muttered, adding at a normal volume, "Did she seem weak? Maybe as if she were fatigued?"
"No," Jack could still feel the cold metal of her sword pressed against his throat, "No, she was definitely strong. She just really missed her sisters. After she put the sword away, she cried all over me."
"Really…" Pitch hummed thoughtfully to himself, "Iele are usually more controlled than that."
"Didn't you just say with the mood swings-"
"Never mind that, now, Jack," a dismissive wave of the hand did not, however, deter Jack's raised eyebrows, and Pitch sighed, "They tend to keep the less attractive emotions contained, unless it's of a vengeful nature. Yes, they feel deeply and erratically, but Iele avoid displays of 'weak' emotion like sorrow, as they have a surprisingly long held grudge against emotional human women. Anger, though, apparently meets their approval."
Jack paused, "So she could have been lying to me, all along?"
"Iele don't lie, Jack," And Pitch was back to staring at the little symbols in the dirt as if they made sense. A beaker, a sword, and a feather surrounded a capital 'S,' with the snowflake off to the side, and a question mark above and between both groups. Staring harder, Jack figured that the 'S' could be Sandy, and the feather, Toothiana. The sword, then, would be North, but why the beaker? And what exactly was Pitch gaining from this? The only thing Jack was getting from it was bored.
"Okay, I give," Jack sat heavily from his crouch, putting his staff across his lap, "What does all this mean?"
"Nothing, really," Pitch murmured and added a few more quick slashed symbols near the question mark, "Just trying to focus." A little flame, or at least, Jack thought it was a flame, showed up next to the snowflake, and the symbols around the question mark only grew. Eventually, Pitch seemed satisfied with their quantity, and began very slowly scratching some of them out. Their number lessened, and lessened, and Jack groaned, throwing himself dramatically to the ground and staring at the ceiling, instead. "You have no patience."
A snort. "Like you do."
"I can," Pitch circled three symbols, "Something's going on, Jack." The winter sprite rolled over to see Pitch and his drawings. "The Guardians are preoccupied. Spiritual activity is up. An Iele, far from home and active, when all six of her sisters are down."
"What do you mean, spiritual activity is up?" Jack asked, thinking of the town he'd visited most recently, the despair he'd had to cut through before the kids started having fun. He'd seen signs there, that some of the local unfriendlies were up and about… He hoped his suspicions were wrong.
"I mean, spirits who shouldn't be active are waking up. Can't you feel that?"
Jack sat up, "Um… No?"
"Honestly," Pitch huffed, "The Guardians did you no favors leaving you alone so long; another part of their self-appointed duty and all that down the drain. Give me your hand," he held out his own and waited until Jack clasped it, "Good. Alright. I haven't done this in…" His other hand tapped his chin, "Hmm, maybe I haven't done this."
"Wait, you've never-"
"Not exactly like this," Pitch shrugged, dismissing his own lack of experience, and suddenly, shadows were seeping into Jack's skin, stealing away whatever he'd been about to say. It felt like a thin sheet of liquid, just under the skin, making its way to his chest, almost curling there for a moment, before sliding up his throat and spine, into his head. Finally, it settled just behind his forehead and curled around the insides of his skull. It shifted, and for a second, he was Pitch. He could see places he'd never been, and feel the Fearlings like they were arms and legs, hear a thousand and one conversations, know every darkened corner, he could see himself- and very quickly, it ended, and Jack felt deaf, and blind, in comparison to that overload of sensory information, but relieved, besides. Underneath it all had been the trickling influence of fear. "Hold on. That wasn't right." The shadow in his head shifted again, and Jack became aware of a sense he hadn't known he had; he couldn't name it, exactly, but the closest he could come to describing it was a pulse, coming from everywhere and everything. It beat a bit faster than the average heart, and was beginning to overwhelm Jack with the sheer pressure of it. The shadow shifted, and he knew how to stop it the same way he knew how to close his eyes. Pressure easing, Jack opened eyes he'd subconsciously shut, and Pitch looked very proud of himself. "And there you have it," he preened, "Much faster than trying to explain."
"What was it?" Jack pressed, "That pulsing?"
"Pulsing?" Pitch echoed, looking interested, "Is that how you felt it?"
"Pitch…"
"Right, right," he visibly restrained the urge to poke and prod, "That was how you feel the other spirits in the world. Sort of like," he turned his hand in a vague circle, "a barometer for the proximity and density of active spirits. For me, it's a sound," his nose wrinkled, "a tinny, high-pitched buzz that just gets more and more annoying as spirits become more active." A sigh, "It was so low and quiet during the Dark Ages…"
"Can't you turn it off?" Jack asked, and felt a twitch, only then becoming aware he was still holding Pitch's hand.
"No," the answer was curt, terse, and final, so the accompanying explanation took Jack off guard, "I'm not a terrestrial spirit. When you 'turn it off,' that's the planet blocking it out for you. The bond you have to your homeworld crowding out that sense. Since I formed… elsewhere, this planet doesn't do a thing about it. If we were on my homeworld, it'd be the other way around." He shrugged, "Though, I probably destroyed my homeworld, already."
"Okay, Eater of Worlds," Jack's eyes rolled, "Tone down the empathy and regret. You're blinding me with the light of your compassion."
"I don't even remember, Jack," Pitch complained, detaching his hand from Jack's and standing up. "For all we know, it could have been a planet of child-killers. Don't lecture."
Jack rolled his eyes and hopped to his feet, changing the topic, "So, now we know something's going on; what are we going to do about it?"
"Visit the bloody seer spirits, that's what."
Jack at first made to follow, but stopped dead in his tracks, taking Pitch's arm to make the spirit stop with him. He knew he'd been forgetting something, "Wanna get out of my head, first?"
Despite looking almost disappointed, the Boogeyman teased, "But it's so roomy in there."
"Out," Jack demanded, pointing at his forehead as if to emphasize exactly where Pitch was no longer welcome.
"Fine," Pitch stroked a hand across Jack's forehead and the shadow followed it like two magnets separated by a thin layer, down the neck, across and down the arm, and finally seeping out of Jack's fingertips. "It's easier to get in and out through the mouth or the heart," Pitch was saying, "But the hands won't hurt you. As much. I think. I don't usually do this without possessing the other person involved."
"Doesn't hurt," Jack confirmed, flexing his fingers as the strangeness of the feeling lingered, "You sure you're all out?"
"It's starting to sound like you don't like me, snookums." The words were teasing, but Pitch's tone held a hint of hurt, and Jack sighed.
"I thought you didn't need anymore... 'disturbing bonding moments' to reaffirm that you're my favorite mass of squishy shadows, honeybunch." Pitch shuddered at the revival of the nickname and Jack shrugged, with half a grin, "Don't dish it if you can't take it."
"Oh, let's just go."
