Author's note- Here's another bit of insanity inspired by LittleMana.
This weekend is going to be kind of busy for me. Next chapter will be up on Monday. Sorry about the wait.
Jack crouched at the edge of his lake with his hood drawn up and one arm slung across his knees. The other hand was using his staff to doodle designs in frost on the water's frozen surface. The kids he normally skated with on it had all been bundled away into the new indoor skating rink that had been opened in town.
And Jack got it, he did. He was no stranger to kids having fun indoors in the winter time. Not everyone had the same affinity for cold that he did. It was good that kids had things to do indoors when their fingers and toes started to go numb from the chill outside. He was the Guardian of all types of fun, not just the ones that had to do with him directly, after all. Video games, reading, drawing, he could appreciate the quieter, stiller enjoyments as well, even if he preferred more active pursuits himself.
But this, this hurt. Skating and hockey were things that could just as easily be done outside as indoors. He'd made perfectly good rinks for people to enjoy, and they'd turned to stifling, enclosed, unnatural options instead.
It wasn't the kids' fault, of course. Their parents had decided that it was better to have them in a walled-in location where they weren't likely to wander off and could be left with coaches for lessons in skating, hockey, ringette, etcetera. Plus, the ice was carefully maintained and there were no worries about thin ice when it was only a floor a few inches below the surface.
Jack could see the logic in that. He was the result of a skating outing gone awry, after all. He'd never allow any child under his watch to fall through, of course. The thinnest of ice thickened safely within his presence. But the adults never saw him, never knew that he was safeguarding the kids. And they worried for their children's safety, he got it.
But it just felt as though he was being pushed out of the few niches that he had. Seeing snowmaking machines on ski hills gave him the same sort of sick, unwanted feelings.
Oh, no, Jack, we don't need you. You're too messy, too uncontrollable. We want something nice and predictable instead. Just go back to being invisible, why don't you?
Jack bit his lip and rapped his staff hard against the ice, sending spiraling ferns of frost lancing over the entire surface of the lonely lake.
"Mmm. I haven't been treated this particular flavour of fear in a long time, Jack. Honestly, it's making me feel a little nostalgic." A dark, looming shadow was cast across the ice next to him. Jack didn't bother to look up.
"Hi, Pitch." Jack said tiredly.
"Feeling a bit out of sorts, are we?"
"I'm really not feeling up to this right now. Just… leave me alone." Jack said with a sigh.
"Ah, yes, just like the good old days. You feeling all alone and isolated and telling me to shove off," Pitch replied airily. "Though I think you've got the roles reversed, here. I'm supposed to be the gloomy, brooding one. You're the disgustingly cheery brat."
Jack snorted. "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I'm not able to hold a candle to one of your world-class sulks, Pitch. You still hold the top spot on the gloom-and-doom spectrum."
"You have no idea how relieved I am to know that." The boogeyman said dryly. "What is it that's got you so sour today?"
"Mmmph. Skating rink." Jack mumbled into his sleeve.
"Ah." Pitch was silent for a while, and Jack lapsed back into his thoughts. By the time Jack realized that it was rather strange for the boogeyman to shut up for so long and looked up, Pitch was gone.
The Burgess Indoor Skating Rink had an eventful week.
First just little things. The lights started to flicker intermittently, and particularly seemed to do so when there was just one person alone in the locker rooms, the hallways, the concession booth. Calling in an electrician to check the fuses and the connections turned up nothing.
Then the locker room incidents started. People swore that they had left their belongings one locker to the right of where they were found. The next day, the stuff somehow was all shifted two lockers over when everyone left the room. The third day, the belongings were moved right to the opposite end of the room from where they originally were.
The contents of all the maintenance closets swapped with each other on the fourth day. The janitors almost had a fit, especially since the lights were still flickering every time they came by after hours to clean.
The Zamboni broke down on the fifth day. The repairman said that there were probably a dozen gaskets and bolts missing when he opened it up.
The missing parts were later found scattered around underneath the bleachers.
First, they figured it was probably the kids playing jokes on them, somehow. But an overview of the security camera footage from near the doors to the locker rooms, as well as the footage from the storage rooms, turned up not a sign of anyone.
Though there was one camera that had apparently had some kind of glitch. Near midnight, for about thirty seconds, the picture suddenly cut to static and flickered between that and utter blackness. Then it went back to normal, boring footage again.
O'Malley swore he could see a figure looming in the dark of that footage. And that it was smiling at him.
No one else could make out anything, even when they looked at it frame by frame. O'Malley didn't come back to the rink after that, saying that he knew better than to tangle with spooks.
On the sixth day, they came in that morning to find that all of the windows had been opened and snow had been blown in all over the place.
The seventh day seemed to see subtlety thrown to the wind, because there had been a message carved into the ice of the skating rink by what appeared to be a very large, very sharp blade.
'GET OUT'
After that, the owner decided that it was maybe wise to go take a vacation in a nice, warm, bright locale and close the skating rink for a bit.
Jack landed on the roof of the rink just as a shadow poured out of the ventilation duct and coalesced into the shape of the boogeyman. Pitch was looking far too pleased with himself.
"Jeez, I have a bit of a down day, mention a skating rink, and the next thing I find out you've decided to haunt the whole place? Really?" Jack asked.
"Maybe it was just a whim," Pitch replied with a shrug. "I can have fun if I want to, and this was a lot of fun. I've forgotten how much I enjoy a good old-fashioned haunting."
Jack shook his head and sighed, ducking his head to hide his smile. "…I'm going to have to watch everything I say around you, aren't I?"
"You don't already? You don't watch to make sure you don't give me something I could use against you, against the Guardians? Careful, Jack, or some people might come to the conclusion that you trust me or something," Pitch drawled, clasping his hands behind his back and staring out over the town.
"But I do," Jack said simply as he idly spun his staff between his fingers.
The boogeyman froze. "…What?"
Jack cocked his head to one side. "Trust you. I mean, we've been hanging out for years now. I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't have some faith in you after all that, would I?"
Pitch whirled on Jack, fixing him with a long, appraising stare. Yellow eyes flicked over Jack's face, seeming to search for something hidden there. Twice Pitch's mouth opened as if he was about to say something, but he snapped it shut both times. Finally, he clenched his jaw and turned away from the Guardian, hands curling closed as though he was trying to hold onto something. "You're a fool, then. A fool and a liar," he finally said, flatly.
"What? I am not! Pitch, you cannot seriously be-" Jack started to say, but the boogeyman vanished. "…Surprised about this. What's his problem?" The Guardian of Fun glanced around to see if Pitch was just lurking somewhere nearby. Not as far as he could tell. It looked like the boogeyman was long gone. What had set him off? "Weirdo," Jack muttered with a shrug.
