I was going to work on Linguaphile 2 next, but the inspiration was not cooperating, so I just wrote this one instead. This one's also a sort of extension of Linguaphile, and happens relatively around the same time as Linguaphile 2, which I plan to write next.
Thank you to everybody who followed and favorited, and thank you CaetlynoftheStars, Sparklepool101, and Demi Clayton for reviewing! (Here's some Bunny for you, Demi!)
Bibliophile
Bunny was making his way through the Pole hallways, deftly dodging jingling elves and toy-laden Yetis, berating North under his breath as he made his way to the Globe Room for their scheduled Guardian meeting. He was about to turn into a back halway, muttering about how the Russian's anal tendencies were going to make him late, when he smelled a whiff of something beyond the usual cacophony of scents (predominantly a wood-and-paint smell mixed with the aroma of cookies) of the Pole. An cold, piney scent that was instantly identifiable to Bunny was nearly hidden by the smells of the Pole, but the hint the Bunny caught was enough to put him on his guard. He was due for a meeting, so Jack would have known he was coming, which made it legitimate for Bunny to be worried that the rotten little prankster was waiting to dump a bucket of frigid snow on his head. (The stunt was rather juvenile for a prankster of Jack's caliber, but he had still used it several times already, because it was reliably effective against the cold-hating Bunny.)
The intersecting hallway was a bit less bustling, and Bunny had planned to take it to get to North's office the faster back way, since the fussy Russian complained about Bunny making tunnels in the Pole ever since that one minor incident. (Really, it was only a small gaggle of elves, and their being able to navigate his tunnels well enough to find his chocolates was a one-time fluke.) But its less active nature also made it a rather good ambush stakeout for one icy hellion, and Bunny wasn't about to be caught in his trap this time.
He peeked cautiously around the corner, green eyes checking the ceiling first (the rotten little bugger could fly, after all) before skimming dismissively across several yetis. They passed over a few skittering elves and finally snagged on a flash of sunlit white hair tucked into a window alcove, brightly eye-catching in the afternoon light. Jack's head was down, focusing on something in his lap and ignoring the bits of hallway traffic that passed him by.
A smirk crept over Bunny's face as he decided to take advantage of the younger Guardian's distraction and turn the tables for once. He leaped lightly across the hallway and flattened himself against the wall, creeping carefully and silently closer to the alcove. He paused while still out of sight just next to the alcove, hardly daring to breathe, before abruptly poking his head around the corner, inches from Jack's face. "Whatcha doin', Frostbite?"
To the Pooka's great disappointment, Jack didn't so much as flinch at his sudden appearance or loud voice. Instead, the winter spirit merely blinked and looked up from the book that was sitting open on his crossed legs, putting an absent hand out to steady the stack of other books he had next to him. "Oh, hey, Cottontail."
Bunny spluttered, straightening and stepping out from behind the wall. "That's it? Seriously?"
Jack looked confused for a second, then a grin spread across his face. "Were you trying to sneak up on me?"
Bunny held in a huff that would have been too childish to voice and crossed his arms. "I apparently didn't even need to bother; an elf could have snuck up on you with its jingly little hat for all you would notice!" he said. He was feeling a bit cranky that his finesse had been wasted.
Jack shrugged, still grinning at Bunny's put-out expression.
"What's got you so distracted anyway, a pile of books?" Bunny asked, peering at the huge one Jack had open in his lap.
"Yeah," Jack said brightly, running his hand gently over the yellowed pages. "North is a packrat, so the Pole library- which I didn't even realize we had- has a huge collection of books from a mountain of genres! This stack is just what I grabbed for the next few days. It'll take me decades to get through all the ones I want to read!"
Bunny glanced at the towering stack of books next to Jack. Those were for a few days? "I didn't even know you could read."
Jack shot the Pooka a look of disgust. "Of course I can read. I could read English before I became Jack Frost, and I can read most of the languages I speak now."
"How many languages do you speak?" Bunny asked incredulously.
"Probably all the ones you can think of," Jack said dismissively, sending Bunny's eyebrows shooting up. "It's pretty darn hard to learn a language without being able to read it," he continued, moving on without giving Bunny the chance to question that statement further. "And it was one of the easiest ways to learn a language before the world became more connected: slip into early schools where the kids aren't even fluent in their own language yet, and follow along with the reading lessons. I even made my own frostboard so I could write along," he said, grinning and snagging his staff from where it was leaning against the wall. (Which Bunny hadn't noticed before, but made his eyebrows climb even higher up his face- he had never seen the kid voluntarily not holding his staff. Even when he was unconscious from Sandy's dreamsand after the battle with Pitch, they'd had to pry it out of his hands- it was practically an extension of Jack himself. And he'd set it aside for a book? Damn.)
Jack tapped the ground with the hooked end of his staff, forming a thin, rectangular tablet of ice, and picked it up gently. Frost formed where his pale fingers met the ice and crept across the surface, curling in intricate floral patterns that the artist in Bunny had to admit were beautiful. (Even if they were still too blasted cold.) He cringed internally when Jack drew a finger through the crystalline patterns, forming characters that Bunny recognized from upside-down as Korean letters. (He thought he remembered the writing system being called Hangul, but he wasn't completely sure- languages had always been more North's thing.)
Jack rested staff against his shoulder and held up the tablet to show Bunny the word he had written: 캥거루. "See? I can even write your name," he said, grinning devilishly.
Bunny knew very little about Korean, but he was pretty sure that was at least three syllables, and Jack would never call him Bunnymund. (Especially not wearing that grin.) He gave the white haired spirit a dead-eyed look. "That says Kangaroo, doesn't it?"
Jack's widening grin was answer enough.
"Ya know, Tooth is the main reason you don't have a few gaps in that smirk of yours, ya irritating little blighter." Bunny said blackly, said smirk only widening in response. "Aren't you ever gonna come up with a new insult?"
Jack laughed. "Aw, now Bunny, why would I do that when this one still works so wonderfully well at making that furry face of yours turn murderous?"
Bunny rolled his green eyes and wondered why he had even asked.
"Besides, look how cool that looks!" Jack continued, holding up his frostboard again. "Korean was probably my favorite Oriental language to learn to read. It's alphabet based, unlike Mandarin, so once you learn that you can sound out the letters, and it only has one writing system to reckon with, unlike Japanese- that one was tricky," he mused. "Especially since they use all three systems in the same sentence. Also Korean letters just look awesome, so they're a lot of fun to read and write."
"Ah." Bunny really wasn't sure how to respond-he had never really paid that much attention to any of them. (He was an artist, not a linguist!) He groped for something else to say, and his eyes fell on the book that Jack had been reading. "So whatcha reading now?" he asked.
Jack followed his gaze and smiled as he picked up the yellow-paged tome. "This is a collection of German folk tales. It's got some pretty obscure ones, along with early versions of some of the more commonly known fairytales. Although the early versions are pretty different from how Disney shows it- some of these stories are weird. The German itself isn't hard, though; a lot of the words are similar to their English counterparts. French words now, those were some interesting work," he said musingly. "Pretty fun, though."
Bunny nodded once. Awkwardly. "Okay, then," he said, dragging out the o.
He was saved from trying to think of anything else to say by the tiny tooth fairy Jack had named Baby Tooth whizzing past him and zipping around Jack's head, chirping out rapid and excited high-pitched chitters.
"Oh, that was today?" Jack looked around as if searching for a calendar. Baby Tooth squeaked again and nodded, her tiny arms crossed. Jack winced. "Yeah, I know, she's really busy and doesn't need to wait because people are late. But hey, Bunny's late too!"
Bunny shot the younger Guardian a nasty look, but recoiled when the tiny fairy zipped over and shook a disapproving finger inches from his face, chirping something angrily before crossing her arms again.
Bunny blinked and shook his head. "Sorry, sheila, I don't speak Squeak."
Jack snorted and swept up his books, hugging them awkwardly in his arms and gripping his staff to float into the air. "She's yelling at you for being the older one who can make tunnels wherever you want to go instead of flying, and still managing to be late. I'm not sure if those are her words or Tooth's, though," he said, his wind carrying him next to Bunny as they took a route toward the Globe Room that Bunny knew passed by the room North had outfitted for Jack. Baby Tooth chirped again, and Jack nodded. "That just means you're both right," he responded, shooting Bunny a cockeyed smirk.
Bunny rolled his eyes, but he magnanimously ignored the jab this time. (Mostly because he didn't want to give Jack the satisfaction of protesting.) "So I take it you speak Squeak too?"
Jack laughed at the sour expression Baby Tooth directed at Bunny. "Yep, although still more understanding than speaking. Give me a few more months, though, and we'll see about fixing that."
Bunny stared at the winter spirit for a second, just long enough to almost trip over an unfortunately dumb elf. "Geez, Frostbite. Didn't realize you were some kind of linguistic genius or something," he said dryly, only half joking.
Jack chuckled softly, pushing open the door to his room and setting his stack of books reverently on the table just inside before tugging it closed again and continuing toward the Globe Room. "Not really. It's not really as much to do with my being smart as it's 300 hundred years of practice. Also, when you've learned as many languages as I have, you learn of pattern searching, so new ones are easier to pick up quickly," he said, shrugging crookedly.
Even with that much time, Jack still must have put in an awful lot of time and effort to learn so many languages. Bunny wasn't too surprised, actually; the teenaged spirit had the tenacious and stubborn ability to find fun in and make the best of life, even in situations when most people would have given up. The kid was special, and it had taken the Guardians far too long to see it. Bunny would be sure to see that they didn't forget it.
Not that it would be easy to, if Jack was going to keep impressing them with skills like this.
Bunny smiled a warm little smile that held a frightening amount of fondness, covering it quickly with an eye roll. "Sure, so now you're all Mr. Humble. Not buyin' it, Frostbite."
Jack put on an affronted expression as he flew backwards in front of Bunny, putting a dramatic hand over his heart. "Who, me? Bunny! I'm always humble!" His offended expression cracked into a smirk at Bunny's withering look, and he laughed as he landed lightly in a few steps away from the door to the Globe Room.
Bunny smirked sarcastically. "Sure ya are, ya gumby," he said, some of that embarrassing affection spilling over into his response against his will.
He wasn't sure why it was so ingrained to resist. Maybe it was because Jack would have taunted him mercilessly for it before their talk after Burgess.
Still, he resolved to work on it. Jack deserved all the affection he could get and more, and even that wouldn't make up for the centuries he'd had to spend without it. But it would remind him that he wasn't alone anymore; that he was seen, and valued, and wanted. That he was loved.
Bunny could sacrifice his pride for that.
Jack grinned impishly and started for the door, not bothering to respond to such a halfhearted comeback, and Bunny realized that there was no time like the present to start.
"Still, it's pretty impressive, kid," Bunny said. And he meant it, too.
Jack looked back, surprised, before a warmly genuine little grin came to his cold face, warming Bunny's chest at the sight. "Was that an actual compliment, Cottontail?" the winter spirit said, his trademark snark lightened by the smile still sparkling in his blue eyes.
"Ah, rack off, ya dill," Bunny grumbled, knowing his own green eyes gave away a matching smile. Jack laughed and pushed open the door, the sound of Tooth's scolding rising immediately as they both went in to face it together.
And as Bunny passed by the Jack, he ruffled the younger spirit's white hair and continued on toward his regular spot, leaving behind a mildly stunned youngest Guardian and ignoring his heating face at the looks the others sent him, because he knew his message was unmistakable.
Was that an actual compliment, Cottontail?
Yes. Yes it was.
Because Jack deserved it.
A/N Poof! And there was Chapter 2! (Wow, it got kinda long!) Had this one planned out a little more, so I was able to chip away at it in a decent time! Hope you enjoy, and please review to let me know what you think! See ya'll in the next chapter