Luck's Always to Blame
Author's Note: Me, as I'm getting into bed and am pulling out my laptop: Oh, what's the point? I'm not gonna get that 100th review tonight. I'll just have to wait OH MY GOD THE 100TH REVIEW.
Once again... Anything. Anything you want. Slightly out of reason.
Thank you to Doc (there :) ), Dragoneisha (there is no mediocre fanart. Any good author should be ecstatic that someone is giving their story the time of day, and if they sacrifice even more of that to do fanart or anything of the sort... It makes me so happy that someone likes what I do enough to do that that I want to cry), Luna (of course I did! :) And I'm not sure... it'll either be at the very end or right before the plot starts thickening. Probably the end), LovelyDovely (that is an excellent question. As a matter of fact, Katherine and Nightlight are the last spirits that will be introduced. The reason I introduced at all is because they are all involved somehow in the final battle and all battles leading up to that, which should begin soon), Falcrow (dude, Nightlight is my current literature crush :} He's just so freakin' perfect! He's got Jack's sexy mischevious... ness, Sandy's adorableness, and Bunny's awesomeness!), kiabella (yeah, but the Dark Brotherhood quests make my mom uncomfortable, so we'll have to get him later XD), Anime Girl (you wait however long you want, at least I know you'll read it eventually XD), 0renginal (well, since you all adore me so...), and Jinxed dragonfly (XD the only canon I screwed was their possible ages) for reviewing!
Disclaimer: That was the last OC chapter, so I can safely say that I own all OCs introduced except Sam (LunaMoonlight100) and Katherine and Nightlight (William Joyce). Oh, or Hot Hands.
Chapter 11
Of course Jack would come. After all, it had been a week, and he'd just stopped by last night to research the glowy kid. He had to have known that Jamie didn't have school that day, and therefore would be waiting for whatever amount of fun Jack was prepared to bestow upon him. Surely he could take a day off from whatever he had been so busy with to have a snowball fight, or at the very least help the children of Burgess make the base of their next attempt at the world's biggest snowman. I mean, really.
But Jamie was beginning to lose hope as late afternoon rolled around, and he'd used up all his Hot Hands on his disturbingly stationary fingers. With a heavy sigh, he began his melodramatic exit of the snow and towards his house.
"Hey! Where ya going?"
"Jack!" Jamie exclaimed, ecstatically rushing up to his friend. Jack was casually leaning up against his staff with his usual grin, but his gaze kept shifting a little bit to his left. Lucky was holding her breath, waiting to see if her fellow Guardian was right and Jamie would indeed be able to see her on his first look.
He didn't.
"Hey, Jamie," Jack began, seeing Lucky's face fall upon realizing that she was still invisible, "there's some-" He was interrupted by her violently ramming her elbow into his side and shaking her head furiously. If someone was going to believe in her, it wouldn't be because Jack told them. Even if that meant she'd stay this way forever.
"What were you saying?" Jamie asked, eyes wide.
"What? Oh, nothing."
"Really? 'Cause it looked like someone just elbowed you." Lucky smirked. Observant kid.
"Naw, it's just me and you." Jamie's eyes narrowed. Jack was a pretty smooth liar, but he'd noticed that the spirit fidgeted with his staff whenever he did it. He was doing that now. The boy took a closer look at the space next to Jack, but nothing was there. He most not have thought of someone yet. Was it the glowy kid?
Glowy kid, I believe in you!
... Nothing.
"So what should we do today?" Jack asked, twirling his staff around and beginning a stroll towards Jamie's house. The boy hurried after him. Even if there was something there that he, for whatever reason, couldn't see, Jack was still here and that meant certain fun.
"Well, my mom was complaining about the pumpkins left over from Halloween," the brunette put in, adjusting his hat. "I asked Sam if she had any ideas on getting rid of them, but she just went on some dramatic tangent about the beauty of pumpkins, even when they were rotting and beginning to smell."
"Sam comes here?" Lucky asked, eyes widening. She didn't seem like the type that needed believers to be happy. Then again, maybe her happiness was because she had them. She waited for Jack to respond, but he just went on contemplating the best way to rid Mrs. Bennett of her leftover pumpkins. Only when he shot her a wink did she understand. She scoffed, but he was right. He certainly couldn't draw attention to her by talking to her.
"Pumpkins, you say?" Jack grinned after watching Lucky's cheeks puff out in irritation. "Well, we're very lucky today!" The emphasis on the key word was not lost on Lucky, and she looked past him at Jamie.
Still nothing.
"What do you mean?" Jamie asked, noticing the flakes of dirty orange in the distance.
"I know just the way to take those off your mom's hands!" Jack assured with a grin, flying ahead of a confused Jamie and an invisible Lucky.
"PLAY BALL!" Jamie and his friends weren't sure how they hadn't thought of it! Pumpkin baseball with the plethora of tiny, smelly pumpkins that decorated their porches and stunk up their rooms. Genius! Jack had promised a grand finale for the rotting Jack-O-Lanterns and massive pumpkins leaning with their own weight, but not before stepping up with his staff as his bat.
Lucky sat on the sidelines, leaning against a tree in the clearing that the children had chosen as their playing field. She wasn't unhappy at not being able to play; she didn't relish the thought of getting stinky pumpkin seeds on her new clothes. What really bothered her was that no one could see her yet. I mean, sure, these kids probably weren't as intense about the Guardians as Jamie, but you'd think that they'd at least heard her name somewhere. Then again, they'd probably heard Jack's name, too, and didn't believe in him.
Which brought her thoughts back to Jack. He'd been exploiting every oppurtunity he could think of to say "luck" or anything like it, but the kids just looked at him, confused. That is, if they didn't ignore it all together, like they were doing now. He was doing his best, but it wasn't working. And the kids seemed to love him so much. Maybe she could help a little...
No. If people were going to believe in her, it would be because they figured it out, not because Jack flat-out told them. Lucky sighed. While it was certainly not the way to go, it was awfully tempting. That was how the children had come to believe in Sam and Jester, as well as any other spirit that came to visit them. It was so simple. "Hey guys, there's this witch that'll scare you. I know, but she's pretty cool, and her name is Sam- oh, look, now you can see her." But that didn't seem legitimate. She wanted something more than that.
Lucky surveyed the game. Jamie and Jack were team captains, even though it was essentially everyone against Jack. Even then, the Guardian of Fun was thoroughly beating them. The spirit of luck had a lightbulb moment. It wouldn't be enough to make them see her, but it may get the ball rolling...
A bit to Jack's surprise, Lucky smirked and swaggered over to Jamie, who was pitching. She shot him one last dazzling smile before bending over and kissing the brunette on the cheek. Jack's eyes widened, and Jamie released what was by far the best pitch in the game, sending the little pumpkin spiralling into a tree. At the sound of the bigger girl's (she heard the name Cupcake) "STRIIIIIKE ONE!", everyone on the other team cheered, and Jamie stared at his hands in wonder. Jack glared at her, but she merely giggled and moved onto the player closest to her. She made a quick circuit around the track, planting a lucky kiss on each of the players, until finally there was a chance they could've won the World Series with their luck. Jack was losing miserably now, and all the children cheered upon realizing that they'd run out of pumpkins to strike him out with.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered to the gloating children as they followed him to a blonde boy's red wagon, where they'd stashed all their bigger rotten pumpkins. Since he lost, Jack had to drag the wagon all the way to and up the cliff on the outskirts of the woods, where they planned to have a contest to see which pumpkin splattered the most.
"I just can't believe it," Jamie breathed for what seemed like the billionth time. "I mean, you were creaming us, and then all the sudden BAM! We're creaming you!"
"That was me, you know," Lucky said to her deaf audience. "You could be a little grateful." Jack glanced at his invisible companion. She was smirking, and he found it contagious as the smile broadened across his face.
"You guys just got LUCKY," he insisted, making sure to put more emphasis on the word than before. He had a feeling he was gonna owe a lot of kids a lot of money when they started making bets, if Lucky decided to pull the same thing she'd done at the clearing. If they just saw her...
They didn't. Instead, they all stared at Jack as if he had grown a third eye, or something equally strange (since a third eye didn't seem all that strange for the immortal spirit of Winter.) Lucky sighed, kicking a rock in her irritation. Only Jamie noticed, but it wasn't like he hadn't known there had been a hidden spirit before.
Who could it be? he thought, racking his brain. He tried to think of all the weird, potentially paranormal things that had happened since Jack arrived. There had been that weird way Jack was talking, and the comeback at pumpkin baseball. Wait... didn't all the words Jack was saying especially loudly sound the same? He honestly hadn't thought about it before.
"Here we go!" Jack wheezed as he pulled the wagon up to the top of the hill. Very carefully so as not to rupture their soft skins, the children unloaded their rotten produce, occasionally throwing one over the side when it crumpled in their hands.
"Ew," Lucky said, a sneer snaking its way across her pretty face.
"Which one do you think, Jack?" Jamie asked, his brown eyes wide. The Guardian of Fun mentally cursed. He had been hoping for Jamie to go first, so he could choose the same one.
"Yeah Jack, which one do you think?" Lucky was looking at him with a glint in her opal eyes (That must be mischevious he thought), and he sighed, already knowing how this would turn out. This hardly seemed fair; how was someone invisible to most people going to get enough money to pay back half a dozen kids?
"That one," he said stoically, pointing to a medium-sized pumpkin that he didn't really think would splatter all that much. All the other kids chose their own, betting their pocket change. The most was five dollars, but still, he would probably have to pickpocket someone for that. And he had tried to avoid that sort of trouble-making when he became a Guardian.
"Your's can go first, Jack," a tall redhead said, backing away from the cliff. With a sigh, the whitette scooped up his moldy pumpkin, lugging it over to the edge with the children he'd soon be in debt to on his tail. He was ready to throw it down in frustration, wondering if he could avoid petty thievery.
And then he felt her lips.
They were soft and pleasantly warm, just the right temperature for his cool cheek. And she didn't pull away immediately, either; Lucky's lips lingered for a moment, despite the coldness of his skin. Jack recalled the first time she'd done that, back at the casino. It had freaked him out so he wiped it away; mostly, though, it made him blush. Her kiss did the same thing now, and Jack found the pumpkin slipping through his fingers. It hit the ground below with a loud crack, which was strange considering its soft skin. The twins had to step back to miss being hit by the pumpkin guts, for that's how far the splatter reached. Lucky pulled away, leaving a gold imprint on his skin, an imprint that disappeared by the time he touched it.
"See?" she giggled. Her eyes were pink now, like rose diamonds. "That wasn't so bad."
No. It really wasn't.
"DUDE!" Jamie exclaimed, examining the debris below. "That was insane! I don't think it's possible to beat that!" Jack was half listening, but his main focus was turning around and pulling Lucky towards him with his staff. She let out a little squeak as their noses touched for a moment.
"What can I say?" he murmured. "I got really, really lucky."
And that's when it clicked. Jamie's mind retreated to the past, to one of his father's poker nights. The brunette had snuck downstairs in hopes of sneaking some seven-layer dip, and stumbled upon one man cheering and pulling in a mountain of poker chips, another man moaning, and the other four trying to comfort him.
"Looks like Lady Luck has turned her back on you tonight, my friend!" His father laughed, slapping the moaning man on the back.
And that's when Jamie saw her. She was beautiful, very close to Jack, and looking very excited.
"Cash or check(1)?" she asked, knowing the answer.
"Lady Luck!" Jamie exclaimed, his face expanding with the smile. Both the spirits heads snapped in his direction, Lucky's expression turning to one of pure awe.
"He said my name," she murmured.
"I know," Jack replied, releasing her from his staff and sounding more than a little annoyed.
"Jack. He just said my name." Lucky's head snapped back in his direction. "And he's looking at me, too! Look, he sees me!"
"All you spirits sound the same when you get your first believer," Jamie laughed. Slowly, like little lights blinking on, all the other children began to see her. She was hard to miss; after all, Lucky was jumping excitedly and couldn't even make words for an annoyed Jack. Finally, not knowing what else to do, she ran up to Jamie, grabbed his face, and planted another kiss on his cheek. The brunette's face went red as a tomato and his mouth became a squiggly, upward-curving line that represented contentment.
"You broken any mirrors lately, kid?"
"Well, funny you should ask-"
"That'll cancel that out."
"Everyone," Jack bellowed, all eyes averting back to him. "This is Lady Luck, the newest Guardian. She insisted that you find her existence out on your own, but I'll admit, I did help." He smirked at her, and she smirked right back.
"A new Guardian?" Jamie asked, suddenly confused. "Why do we need a new Guardian?" The smirks were replaced with worried lines as the two young spirits looked at each other.
"We don't know," Lucky admitted, shrugging nonchalantly. She had heard the story of Pitch's return at Katherine's treehouse, and didn't want to stir those memories in these kids. "The Man in the Moon was just like, 'Hey, guys, Lady Luck's the new Guardian.' So Jack came to Vegas where we..."
"Where you what?" the blonde, bespectaled boy asked, shaking slightly.
"Found out that Jack is terrible at cards!" Lucky replied with a grin. Jack released the breath that he didn't even know he was holding. The correct answer here was that they fought Nightmares, but both he and the children liked Lucky's answer better.
Author's Note: 1- Shall we kiss now or later?
TERRIBLE ENDINGS FTDUBS!
I'm gonna ask a question that I've been wondering WAIT WHY DON'T I DO A POLL. I'VE NEVER DONE ONE BEFORE :} Okay it's up.
Also, I have to ask for your help. See, Fabula and I have always done this thing where we give each character a theme song. And normally, I've got a bunch by the time I ask for help, but I am TOTALLY stumped with these guys. The only one I've got is Lucky. Ideally, I would like a song for North, Bunny, Tooth, Sandy, Jack, Jester, Cupid, Sam, Oonagh, Daisy, Katherine, and Nightlight, but if you have any ideas for anyone else I'll take those, too. I'll listen to all songs suggested and see if they're good or not. Also, since more is revealed about characters as the story goes on, this will remain open until I add the "Complete" to the end of that little thing up at the top.
Thanks for reading and please review!