Jack both loved and hated his hometown. He loved the weather most. He loved the icy cold and the cloudy sky. He loved how there was barely any warmth most days and the world around him was a constant hue of bleak gray that just calmed him to the depths of his soul.

He loved the winter most. Loved the days on end where he could just sit on their front porch and catch snowflakes on his palm. He'd always end up discarding his gloves and his sweater, wanting to feel the bonedeep chill that settled something in the depths of his spine. His mother had at first insisted he keep the items on but Jack always complained how they made him too warm and that he didn't feel cold enough in them. It took awhile before she stopped kicking up such a fuss about it realizing that Jack had honestly, never really been bothered by the cold, no matter how low the temperature was.

It didn't make much sense in his mind how the cold seemed more like a gentle hug to him than the biting chill everyone else felt. How it gave him boundless energy when everyone else just wanted to curl around the fire drowsyly. Nevertheless that was how Jack was and he knew from the very start that ice was his best friend.

Best friend. Yeah, that was what he hated about his home town. Seeing as Jack was born to a single mother where no one knew who Jack's father was he was naturally the butt end of all the jokes around. Coupled with his small stature, loud personality and the fact that he seemed to have an uncanny knack for getting the flaws of the people around him that he ended up the town's outcast very early on.

There were, of course early attempts at bullying him but it had been put to a swift stop when he somehow managed to put the fear of god into said bullies with a glare. He was still at the bottom of the social chain that every other person in the world seem to care too much about but it didn't really bother him. The people around him were too uninteresting anyways. Too dull , too conscious, too afraid to truly live and he was really uncaring of what they thought of him.

He probably should have pain more attention. They were clearly afraid of him and he didn't know exactly when that fear turned malicious. So while he wasn't expecting it, it wasn't all that much of a surprise either when at 15 a couple of his classmates cornered him. He cursed himself for being outside so late but he couldn't help but take the long way home because of how heavily it was snowing. He had wanted to enjoy the cold as much as possible.

"Let me go," Jack growled out surprised at the weird rumble of his voice. It almost sounding like a second pitchier voice was talking with him. It had unnerved the jocks around him, and he momentarily felt one of the hands on his arms loosen.

"Witch. We should kill the witch. Before he brings badluck to the town," their little ring leader, one of the most popular kids in school whose name Jack barely remembered, slurred. Jack could almost taste the hatred and disgust coming from him, tinged by fear at the edges and he wondered why he never noticed enough before.

"We should throw him in the lake!" The one hokding jacks left arm responds, holding his arm too tightly. "They used to drown witches right?? Let's throw him in the lake!"

While Jack was definitely stronger than what his lithe frame would make you think he was no match for 5 people. He kicked and struggled but was eventually helpless enough that he was thrown into the frozen lake, crashing into the thin layer of ice and falling into the frozen water bellow.

Jack was therfore surprised to realize that his afinity for the cold might just be a tad weirded than he thought it was. The lake was frozen over at the top. While he had inhaled as much air as he could before he fell, he was expecting it to be knocked out of him the moment the icy water crashed into him. He wasn't expecting the cold to caress him instead. He could feel it seeping into the shoulder he had hurt in his struggle to get their hands off him and to his bruised stomach where they had first punched him.

His lungs were beginning to burn but the cold did nothing to him. He was still dazed when two arms pulled him out of the water and while his lungs thanked the relief, gulping big lungfuls of air a part of him missed being so entomed in the cold that he could feel it with every beat of his heart.

He was dazed and in shock, barely registering the towel being put around him and the voices around asking if he would be okay over the sharp ringing in his ears. It was building up to a crescendo before he instinctively grabbed the person in front of him and pulled the man away.

When he could focus again, he realizes he has pulled the man away and that the part of the lake where they were standing had fallen into the icy water below. The ringing in his ears had stopped and the tension in his chest he didn't even notice was soothed while the man, a police man, looked at him blankly.

Apparently someone had seen the five teenagers shoving Jack into the lake and called the cops. In an instant Jack was a victim and a hero while said five teenagers were sent for juvie halls to face counseling for their actions. Jack had saved a police officer even when he himself almost died (he chose to keep the lack of cold to himself, and fibbed about noticing the ice cracking when he saved the policeman and himself.)

It was late into the night that Jack was driven home by the very policeman he had saved, who gave Jack his number and asked him to call again if ever he was in any kind of danger. His mother had rushed outside to check if he was safe, having been called by the cops earlier to inform her of what happened.

When they finally managed to get inside, after Jack had changed into his own clothing instead of the ones the station lent him earlier to get out of his soaked ones, he and his Mother settled down to have a much needed conversation.

An: Right! This!! Umm this is my first try at writing RPF alright? So don't hate too much. Still, my forte is in writing the weird and the wild to the best I could do is a fantasy AU. Ish. Next chapter will explain exactly what Jack is, why the snow loves him and shit. Mark... Won't be around till a few chapters more.