NORTH TO SOUTH, EAST TO WEST
Chapter: Rosy
Prompt: Prepared (Day 11)
Characters: Tooth/Jack
a/n: alright doing prompts a little out of order, only because i'm a little stuck still. but Abby09, it's been a while but here is yours (I would like to see Tooth in a more feminine role-but I feel people forget she's also a woman, sometimes-surely it is sometimes forgot by the guys that she is a lady..? How does being the only female of the group interacts with the other members?-Oh, also can we see Sandy and Tooth cuddle?), hope you enjoy it!
ROSY
Tooth's never really been in love; forever working she's never had the time. If she had been as a human, she doesn't remember it now. It's a foreign feeling; sometimes it's a warm glow that spreads from her head down to her toes, sometimes it's when her heart and stomach do acrobatics in his presence, sometimes it's just a numbness to all emotions except it – love.
Little things about him make her smile. The way his eyes crinkle a little around the edges when he smiles at her, his amused reluctance to have his unkempt silver hair fixed by her, the way he tells all the men goodbye and saves a little wave just for her when they part ways.
It's not like they see each other so often anymore. The Guardians are busy creatures and they all have their own business to handle .Tooth hardly has time for love in between teeth, children and more teeth. But he's always occupying a little void of her thoughts wherever she goes; he's always on her mind.
She doesn't even know how to do anything about it. All she wants him to know is how much her heart swells when he smiles at her, how her pulse races faster when he gives her so much as a look, how infectious his happiness is – when she sees him throwing around snowballs and making snow angels in Burgess, she can't help but feel butterflies doing gymnastics in her stomach.
But it doesn't even matter anymore. That boy Jack Frost has got her hook, line and sinker.
The other guardians know, and that makes her the object of their amusement. What they know of is her little schoolgirl crush, being dragged along by the coattails of her affection.
It is hard being the only girl in that group of fellas. There's never any privacy to do her own 'girly' things – picking flowers, sewing, humming to the love song that's been stuck in her head all morning – and when she does do them, she can always be sure that the boys are snickering behind her back.
They're good people, they do mean well, but they don't really understand her.
Valentine's Day is particularly hard for her. The boys don't bother with flowers or chocolates or feelings. The baby fairies throw themselves at him, giving little kisses as he passes, and much to her disdain, he always returns a lopsided grin and a wink. And what sucks is, she's the one who has to fan them all back to consciousness after that.
On February 14th, she sees him planting a kiss on Baby Tooth's tiny cheek. It's all in the good of his conscience, and she knows it; but it kills her from the inside out. She can help but laugh out of sheer stupidity when she feels tears pooling in her eyes.
Idiot, idiot.
Of course when she rushes past the others, they all stop her and ask what's wrong.
Bunnymund is the worst at this kind of thing. Emotion is something he avoids, most of the time – a single tear spills and it may as well be acid or poison and the person it belongs to is utterly toxic. He doesn't know what to do or say – most days it makes her feel better how amusingly pathetic he is, but today is not one of most days.
"Tooth; yer alright?" he asks her, considerably softly. Tooth angrily rubs the tears out of her eyes.
"No…yes."
His face is blank as a sheet.
"Eh, so, no?"
"No, I'm fine."
"Yes, you're fine?"
"No, I meant, yes, everything's fine."
His ears droop in confusion.
Tooth shakes her head in dismay when Bunnymund doesn't reply –"just forget it, Aster,"
North is kind, but never on point. He knows all the reassuring lines, he's rehearsed them backwards and forwards – as Santa Claus, he's the king of all kids, their problems and insecurities included.
"Toothiana, you can talk to me about anything," he says gently, patting her on the back.
She smiles plaintively.
"I feel like I'm falling."
North raises an eyebrow.
"Falling….please explain a little further."
"Falling. Into a deep dark hole. But, I don't think I mind where I land because I know it'll be safe. And right. It'll feel right. I'll feel like I'll belong there."
"Toothiana, I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to tell me," he clarifies gently. Suddenly his eyes gleam with realization, and Tooth thinks to herself, maybe once – this once – he'll get through to her.
"I'm not an expert on these kinds of things. But what I know is, life is made for one to take chances. Not for being holed up in your palace all day.
Tooth murmurs, "yes…"
"Whatever your heart tells you, you do it."
Tooth says, "yes…"
"And when life gives you a chance, you grab it, you seize it!" "
Tooth exclaims, "yes!"
"So if leaving the tooth palace and building another somewhere else is what your destiny has set out for you, it is what must be done! While you still have time – we all do, to be honest – set your heart free!"
She shouldn't have hoped so high.
Sandy is, without question, the one she can turn to. He doesn't verbalize at all, but he can say so much. Nothing from his mouth, little from his hands, mostly from his head, all from his heart.
They like sitting together alone in silence sometimes. She'll be upset; he'll lend an ear, and by the hour gone, all the problems in the world will have gone away.
"You ever been in love, Sandy?"
He ponders this for a moment, then shrugs apologetically.
"It's a weird feeling you know. A good feeling, absolutely. But it puts you in a different place."
He turns his head to the side quizzically.
"Okay, imagine this."
"You're walking down the street. The trees are green, the sky is blue, and the sun is so bright you can't tell what color it could possibly be. Everything's dandy, but it's all familiar, ordinary, kind of."
"And then, love happens."
"You know that one special person? That's the one, that person you have a little place for in your heart; suddenly you see the world through them, through that person. You start seeing the world from behind a love-tinted magnifying glass. What you know is familiar, but stained by this person who's taking over your whole everything."
"Everything you see is them - in the grass, in the people, in the streets. You begin to think about what they might be thinking about. You being to laugh about what they might think is funny. You conform yourself to what they might find beautiful. Your insides just begin to swim in thoughts of them and everything they do, and everything they think and everything anything they are."
"And it's because love is everything in that moment. It might be for a second, or for a lifetime, but when it's there, it's your whole world."
Sandy sits forward, his hands resting in his curled up palms. He sinks dreamily into Tooth's tale, until she chuckles and nudges him gently.
"Was that just really weird to listen to?" she asks. He shakes his head and gives her a smile.
And then a hug. He wraps his arms around her and pats her gently on the back. It's comforting, and reassuring. He gives her the feeling that everything is going to be okay, even if she's confused and doesn't know what she's doing.
"Everything alright?"
She looks up and sees him. He just stands there with an immense look of concern on his face. Or maybe confusion.
She stands up, "oh, hey."
"You been crying, Tooth?" he rushes over to study her face in closer detail. His face and eyes and those stupidly perfect teeth of his are close to hers.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
His hands rest lightly on her shoulders, looking her conveniently in a position close to him. Sandy watches expectantly; her back is to him, but she can feel his gaze.
She could just lean in and give him a kiss, a 'happy valentine's day', and that would say everything for her. It would be so easy.
That's not what she does. Instead, she shrugs him off gently.
"I'm fine."
And she really is, probably.
Except for the fact she probably can't tell him how she feels. The same way she probably doesn't feel the same way, and if she happened to let it slip anyway, it would probably be a lot harder on her than on him. He would still be smiling, maybe he'd be confused or perplexed as to why, Tooth, why, you're like a mother to me. He would probably apologize, reject her, and smile again.
"But we can still be friends, right?" is what he would say.
That would definitely break her heart more than anything else – it's only sad because that's where they are now. Just friends. And he breaks her heart more and more each day.
Valentine's Day is too much work, and love is hard. Tooth should probably leave it up to Cupid.
a/n: as always, thank you for reading and reviewing, and please leave your thoughts and suggestions with me, i love them!