A/N

Hey everyone! I'm back with the next chapter, and this continues where April Fool's left off!

And just to clarify (because I didn't in the last chapter) Jamie's older. About 17. You may have picked that up, but meh...I reckon I should've told ya :) Better late then never, right?

Anyhoo! Thanks for all of your support! Really! I love seeing all the reviews, favs, and follows! It means the world to me!

Enjoy this chapter, and be aware...quite angsty...

Pity Hole

Jack's world was crashing down around him. His heart was hammering. Beating so hard that he was sure it would burst through his rib cage at any moment. It was far too painful as it was. He just wished it would go ahead and break completely. It hurt too much for it to beat in its cracked state.

Jamie didn't believe in him.

He pulled his knees closer to his chest, the pressure only adding to the pain his heart was putting him through. Confining it more, as if his knees coming into such contact with his ribs took away his chest's ability to move and absorb the shock of his hammering heart. But he didn't care.

Jamie didn't believe in him.

Tears streamed down his face all too quickly. They didn't even have time to freeze on his cheeks as raw emotions tore through his being. He wanted to disappear from the world. He wanted to be numb. To not feel this. Why did it hurt so much? Why did he feel like he was suffocating?

He curled in on himself even more, the affect causing his chest to beg for space and for his lungs to shrink as it became harder to breathe. He wished his little cave were smaller. He wished he could disappear into the hard, frozen dirt and roots around him. He did not want to feel like this. He could not live like this.

Jamie was his first believer. His best friend. His brother…they were family. How…how could he stop believing in him? Jamie was the truest believer. It didn't make any sense! Why?! What had happened?

What did it matter? Jamie didn't believe. He had forgotten him. Jack was nothing more than a myth to his first believer. To his brother…

He felt his magic reacting to his raw and raging emotions. Dagger like icicles were forming around the walls and on the roof of the cave. He had also sealed the entrance at some point with a solid wall of ice. The temperature was dropping and ice was bursting to surface everywhere. The entire cave nearly looked white at this point, and he could hear Wind begging for him to let down the wall of ice, for she could not reach him. But he couldn't. He didn't want to. He wanted to be alone. He couldn't face her gentle prodding's and reassuring gestures. Nothing she did could make this go away. Jamie didn't believe! Didn't she understand that!

Wind wouldn't stop banging and begging! He wanted her to just go away. To leave him for a while. He could feel her rationality seeping into him through their bond, conveying things like, "you're only hurting yourself." and "would Jamie want this for you?" But Jack didn't care. It didn't matter, because Jamie couldn't tell him what he wanted anymore, because Jamie didn't believe in him anymore! So what did it matter?!

He focused onto his powers and could feel the wall growing thicker at his command, further separating him from his physical presence with Wind. Focusing on his end of the link to their bond, he dulled the connection. He couldn't hear her language any more, but he could still feel her distress. Jack would never fully shut off their connection, but dulling it in a time like this gave him the space he felt he needed.

The last word's Jamie said kept echoing in his mind. "Freezing to death." Those words had haunted him for centuries, and could still sneak up on him in the harsher times of winter's today. To Jack, this was not an expression that could be thrown about and used to describe trivial things, such as jumping into a pool in the early summer and finding the water to be cooler than the swimmer anticipated. No. No-No-No-No-NO! "Freezing to death." Far too many people had met this fate in the chilling climates of the mountains, the tundra's, the bone chilling blizzards of his own making, the expansive forest's that are wrapped in blankets of his snow, and…the below zeros of not-quite solid bodies of icy lakes and ponds.

"Freezing to death" was not an expression Jack took lightly. It was not pleasant, and Jack knew this from firsthand experience and from the victims subjected to the numbing cold of his season. He has seen many people…so many people lose war with the deadly Winter in his time. And for Jamie to say he was freezing to death crushed Jack more than anyone would believe three little words could ever do to a person.

Jack sobbed into his legs in his curled up position, unable to control the tears that seemed to be stuck on full blast. Why did it hurt so much? It wouldn't hurt this much with any other child, he had to reluctantly admit. Jamie was different. Not only because he was his first believer, but because he was family. Jamie and his family have welcomed him with opened arms and treated him as if he were the son and brother that had always been a part of the Bennett's. They made this place for him feel natural. The Bennett's made him feel wanted and loved. Wanted and loved by people. People who tolerated his cold touch, and looked forward to his season, and who were excited to have fun his way during this time of year. People who invited Jack, the personification of cold, into their home when most others would slam the door in his face. No one wanted the cold in their homes…but the Bennett's made him feel like he wasn't a burden. That he wasn't deadly cold. They made him feel…accepted and wanted and…normal. Like his presence in their lives was natural.

But all of that was gone now because Jamie didn't believe in him. He couldn't spend as much time with the Bennett's as he would usually if Jamie couldn't see him. It would hurt too much. Just thinking about Jamie walking through him or not hearing his voice…

Why did this hurt so much?! Why did he care so much!? How could one child affect him to the point as too feel physical pain just thinking about the prospect of never having contact with him again?!

Why did he get so close...?

It was all Jack's fault. He had been so desperate to be a part of human lives that he had overlooked all the pain that getting so close could bring him. For centuries, he had screamed and cried out to mortal children, and adults alike, to take notice of him. To acknowledge him. To stop their lies about him being a myth. All they did, however, was confirm his fears and the dark voices in his head that whispered to him of his insignificance and unimportance. How his life…his existence could easily go unnoticed, and no one would ever care for the Frozen Boy, Harbinger of Cold and Death.

Jamie had silenced those voices though. They still lingered of course, but the Last Light's unwavering belief in him kept them in check and gave him the hope that he had lost decades before the boy was ever even a conceivable thought in his parent's mind. Jamie had been his light, shining those dark voices and places into a tiny, submissive speck within his subconscious. But now…now that Jamie was lost to him…that darkness overtook him, whispering insecurities and painful truths of the things he had done and the hopelessness of finding lasting peace. This darkness wrought shame and unworthiness upon him, and it was this darkness that suffocated him.

Amazing how years of encouragement, love, and support provided by his fellow Guardians and the Bennett's could be undone in a single moment. Like great structures and temples, these tender and fleeting feelings of self-worth took years to build and come to trust, and only seconds to knock down.

Why had he put so much dependence of maintaining a stable psych on one mortal. A mortal that would grow old, and eventually pass into a would were immortals were said to be unable to follow. Jack had known he would lose Jamie eventually to the hands of time…but to lose him because he had stopped believing? Jack had not even thought that possible.

Jack felt a shift in the space around him. The icy daggers had moved closer, providing him with the smaller space he had wanted. Some of them had moved to point at the walled off entrance to his little cave, as if to protect him from anything that dare try to invade his self-constructed pity hole.

Jack put his head back down into his knees, sobbing still. How could he still be crying? Did he even have enough water within him to keep this pace of tears up? Surly one could not cry forever. Not even immortals, right? At some point it would end, wouldn't it? Given time, the tears would stop, wouldn't they?

Well, Jack had all the time in the world to find out.

For a moment, Jack believed he heard Wind, still trying to obtain his attention by banging on the icy wall. He thought he heard her speaking as well, but it sounded different…muffled and far. It was likely due to the mental barrier he still had firmly placed between them, and chose to block it out further by covering his ears and curling in on himself even more. His chest hurt, from both his aching heart and abused lungs.

Once again, Jack wished for numbness. Like how he felt when he was nurturing a blizzard. His blizzards always made him feel numb and uncaring. He was not concerned about anything around him and simply sought to carry out the task before him: controlling a raging force of nature. A force that often arose from his own intense emotions. Blizzards required an immense amount of energy to summon and control. Jack had learned in his many years that his powers were often linked to his emotions. Blizzards were harsh for the lives and environments around him…but they were the best way Jack knew to vent his painful emotions. His intense anger, or depression, fueled the blizzards with the energy they needed to sustain themselves, and sapping Jack of all of his strength and feelings. Blizzards stole his emotions, leaving him with only numbness.

And how badly did he wish for that now.

However, he did not wish to open himself to Wind at the moment, who would likely refuse to help him with this task anyway. She believed it was an awful way for Jack to find relief, and would deny him of her aide in this, reminding him that his fellow Guardians would be willing to help if he only asked.

But Jack did not want that now. He wanted to be alone, and did not want to be coddled by the other Guardian. He was not a child! He could come to his own terms of soothing himself. He had done it for three centuries, and could continue to do the same for another three to come.

Maybe…if he hibernated for a while…the pain wouldn't be so intense when he woke up…

Yeah…it was worth a try.

Jack closed his eyes and leaned into the back corner of the cave space he occupied, his ice forming perfectly to the shape of his body to bring him comfort. Jack focused on that slight pull in his subconscious, that he would suppress for decades at a time, and welcomed it to drag him into a deep, undisturbed sleep. It took a moment to make contact with, because of all of the darkness that had surfaced in that last several…minutes? Hours? He did not know, but he knew that it was difficult to sweep these dark voices and menacing thoughts away. He found that he could not push them away completely, but rather had to maneuver carefully past them to reach that thread, always hanging freely in one of the suppressed corners of his mind. Jack grasped at it, and could feel a sense of ease and stillness taking over immediately. Already, his chest and lungs felt a little bit of that much needed relief they had been begging for.

As Jack made to pull himself across the thread more, a horrible noise interrupted his stillness. It was a banging! Fast, loud, and repetitive. Almost panicked and frantic with a sense of urgency he had not known sounds to be able to possess.

Peeling his eyes open, Jack looked to the front of his cave to see it cracking. Someone was tearing down his wall! He watched in horror as the cracks grew in depth and size with each panicked bang. All too soon, a mighty crash brought down his wall and exposed him to the one invading his space.

Jamie…

Jamie stood at the entrance to his pity hole, looking past the razor sharp icicles to stare at Jack. In his right hand, Jamie loosely clung to a sledge hammer, the tool he obviously used to break down the ice wall. He was sweaty and flushed red with the effort it took to bring down the wall. His moped head of hair clung to his forehead and neck by way of perspiration. His eyes were swollen, red and puffy. Jack could see dried tear streaks running over the curves of his cheeks. And he was staring at Jack…staring!

Jamie dropped the sledge hammer, the only thing disturbing the stillness as the heavy metal clanged briefly against the shards of ice littering the ground.

"I'm sorry…"

Jack's heart ached at the sound of that meek voice. Jamie, a nearly grown young man sounded so small, scared, and regretful. Tears sprung to life in the adolescents eyes.

"I'm so sorry…" He said, voice broken and muffled through the sobs now raking his body. At that moment, all the razor sharp icicles disappeared as disbelief took over Jack. Jamie ducked down into the cave, sobbing rather loudly, and childishly wrapped himself around Jack's middle as he had done many times when he was little and Jack had been there to comfort him.

Jamie worked to control his sobs and hiccups and began his apology. "I'm so, so sorry Jack! I was being so awful and-and cruel to you! I did the worst thing I could've possible done to you! I'm so sorry!"

Jack blinked, coming out of is shocked state to stutter out: "Wait…what-what do you mean? How can you see me!?" His voice cracked on the last question.

Jamie hugged Jack tighter, burying his face into the front of the same frosted hoodie that had wiped his tears so many times as a young child. "I-I had an a-awful day at sch-school, and I-I took out m-my frustrations on y-you! I used one o-of your wor-worst fear's against you, a-and treated it as a-a prank. But it was aw-awful, and cruel a-and I'm so s-sorry! I should've ne-never have done th-that and…and. I'm sorry…" Jamie took a few gulping breaths, and said in a barely audible, heart wrenching voice: "I don't want to lose my big brother."

Jack was shocked. All he could do was stare wide eyed and open mouthed at the cave's entrance, not really seeing it. Jamie…Jamie could see him. Jamie still believed in him!

Tears began their unstoppable path down Jack's face as he laughed hysterically. One of those laughs that are uncontrollable and unexplainable, that often happen in moments of overwhelming emotions.

Jamie looked up at him confused and concerned, tears still streaming down his own face.

Through hysterical laughter and raking sobs, Jack locked eyes with Jamie and smiled a hurt and forceful smile. "Good one."

Jack brought a hand to his face, covering his eyes and shame as he cried loud and painfully. Sounds that were a mix of agony and overwhelming relief echoed throughout the small hole in the ground they occupied. Jamie shook his head and continued sobbing silently. He sat up and pulled his big brother close. Jack grabbed on to Jamie's middle, much in the same way Jamie had always clung to him in moments like this. Jamie rubbed his back, trying to soothe him. Jack knew the roles had reversed and that he still wanted to hear Jamie's full story and his excuse's, but right now…he just wanted to remind those voices that he was tangible. That he was real and effected someone's life. That someone did want a frozen boy. Laying in his brother's comforting embrace, and feeling that darkness recede a bit…was good enough for him at the moment. Even if he still held anger, he knew in his mending heart that he had already forgiven Jamie.

Jamie believed.

A/N

Thank you all once more! And to clear things up, Jamie didn't know to run out there with a sledge hammer. The time Jack heard "Wind" banging, and it sounded "muffled" and ''different" ? That was Jamie. He left to go get the hammer when he realized Jack wasn't answering him. (Sorry if this was clear in the story...I don't know. Just didn't want to confuse you all! XD)