Chapter 21
It Clearly Still Matters
Tooth's wings began humming as she stared at the door and raised from her seat.
The Leprechaun let out a long exhale and looked at her.
"Well, that was certainly a rainbow ride," he said humorlessly.
"Chaun, I´ll be right back," she said as she wrenched the door open and zoomed after her friend.
It didn´t take too long for her to catch up to him, despite his quick 4-legged pace. He turned when she called his name.
"Bunny! . . . Hi." She said awkwardly after slowing down.
He raised an eyebrow at her.
"Hello Tooth. . . is something wrong?" he asked as he stood and waited for her to continue.
"Hi, um, how are you?" she asked, landing and extending her arms for a hug. He paused, but complied, in his usual stiff, one armed way.
"I'm well. How are you?"
"I´m great! . . ."
". . . Well, that´s good. . ." he shifted his stance, his fingers busy with twisting one of the buttons on his jacket as they maintained awkward eye contact. Or, at least she thought he was looking at her eyes. His glasses were so opaque; she could never tell.
"So, um. . . you´ve never been here before. . ."
Bunny straightened his collar.
"No."
"Well, if your business with Chaun is finished, can I give you a tour?" she asked.
His ear pulled to the side as a crowd of customers began pointing at the two guardians and whispering amongst themselves. Bunnymund's posture somehow became even more rigid as he turned his back to them and gestured for Tooth to follow him around the corner. He glanced back before turning his attention to her again.
"No, I've done all I needed to do here; I don´t have idle time to stay," he said, looking away.
Two sprites passed by them, and his ear twitched when they stopped in their tracks to stare.
A fur-covered jaw clenched.
"Excuse me, can we help you?" Tooth asked them with a smile.
One of the sprites stammered and they both hurried away, leaving the guardians alone again.
Bunnymund adjusted his glasses, giving her a chance to catch his eyes glancing toward the hallway that led to the exit. Tooth cleared her throat.
"Listen, before you go, I want to apologize to you for what happened at the Pole," she said gently.
His nose twitched.
"Don´t worry about it," he said, giving her a slight smile.
It looked more like a wince.
She tried to break the tension by walking in the direction he clearly preferred and motioning for him to go with her. He reluctantly followed suit, matching her slow gait.
"I really am so sorry Bunny, I shouldn´t have been so rude."
He quickly cleared his throat and re-adjusted his glasses again.
"Please don´t, Tooth; there´s no need to talk about it."
Her pace sped up.
"I feel just awful, and so do the others. North thinks you´re going to avoid meetings because your wife died, and I just think that would make things worse because you need to heal and talk about your feelings, but you never do and Jack is upset because he thinks you don´t like him, and then you left so suddenly and he wanted to ask you to come back but we told him not to because you can be really grumpy sometimes, and after that we-"
"Tooth. . ."
"-all talked about how guilty we felt, and we never would have pushed you like that if we had known, but we didn´t know even though you could´ve told us anytime and we would´ve listened, but all four of us thought that she was a current girlfriend which makes sense because you´re a nice guy, but also doesn´t because you never talk to anyone and you´re pretty awkward socially because you always stay by yourself, even though I´ve never understood why but we-"
"Tooth!"
"- went to eat cookies to make us feel better right after and they didn´t listen to me when I told them not to eat the no-bakes because there´s far too much sugar in them despite North´s claim that the oats balance them out—honestly that´s complete poppycock—sugar is bad for your teeth just like traumatic secrets are, and you must be so heartbroken because you never told us you were married-actually you never even hinted at it which is really sad and we´re all curious even though we all feel terrible and I was wondering if you and Primula ever had kids, and if so-"
"TOOTHIANA!"
"Uh, yes?"
"Stop! Just forget it ever happened, do you understand? There´s no need to talk anymore, not with you or anyone else!"
The fairy finally pulled herself out of her own brain and noticed her surroundings for the first time. They were now just outside of the Pot, being stared at by a whispering group of Summer spirits and a few leprechauns on break. Bunny had led her far, far to the side and well out of earshot, probably in an attempt to hush her mindless babbling and earnest speed-flywalking. He didn´t look happy, if his wrinkled nose, frowning lips and twitching ear were anything to go by.
Tooth gasped.
"Oh no! I´m so sorry Bunny, I´m not trying to make it worse! Don´t be mad, I just want to make sure you know how terrible we feel!" she wailed as her eyes began to sting and her vision got blurry.
"Toothiana, this is completely unnecessary and unwanted! Stop apologizing, damnit! I have nothing more to say to any of you about-"
Bunny froze when he looked at her. Her face was red and her eyes were invisible behind the wall of saltwater that bubbled from them as she whimpered miserably.
Then he stammered and turned away.
"Err-y-yes. It´s alright, I-I think I, um . . . I´m-I'm getting the idea."
He rubbed a hand over his forehead and took a deep breath.
Tooth sniffed and wiped at her eyes. He glanced toward her a few times before sighing.
"It´s, um. . . it´s in the past, Tooth. It doesn´t matter anymore, so. . . s-so you should stop crying," he said softly.
"But i-i-i-it clearly still m-m-matters to you-u!" she sobbed heavily.
He turned away from her and stood awkwardly with pursed lips for a solid ten seconds.
Tooth was too busy trying to compose her bawling self to notice him sigh and rummage through his pockets.
She covered her leaking face with her hands and tried to stifle her heaving, shaky breaths.
Until she felt a careful nudge on her arm.
She peeked out to see a folded pale turquoise handkerchief being held out to her by a furry hand. Bunny still wasn´t facing her, but from this angle she could see his eyes staring at nothing from behind his glasses.
She blubbered a hiccupped 'thank you' before gratefully toweling off her face and blowing her nose with the soft cloth.
"Keep it," said Bunny gently when she made to give it back.
Good thing too, because her eyes started spilling tears immediately after he spoke.
"I guess what I mean to say is, it´s your business-" sniff sniff "-and we had no right to-" hiccup! "-corner you like that," she whimpered, looking away.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sorry for the absence.
Guest: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. These characters have so much to them, and I love how they can be both fierce and sweet according to the situation. Anyway, well done! You called almost everything. The idea that you had about boiling coins down to liquid form was very cool. I feel like that could be its own story, but anyway. We shall see the rest of that in the next chapter. I can´t wait to hear your thoughts, and BTW, I did check out your deviantart profile. I´ve never been on there before, so that was an experience for me. I am impressed that you´re able to draw animals, and you depict very adorable scenes. I can get away with humans (except for their hands) relatively well, but not animals. Anyway, thanks for letting me see some of your work, and for leaving your reviews on here!
Witchypoo Jules: I´m glad you liked Chaun. I´m trying to keep OC´s to a minimum in this story, but I am happy with how he turned out. I´m excited to see what you think of the other few. As for Aster, I think he is a very good business bunny too. Thank you for leaving your thoughts, I hope to hear from you again!
What do you think?
How do you feel about Toothiana (in general, not necessarily from just this chapter)
Do you think Tooth has helped things, or made them worse?
If you were Bunny, what would you do in this situation? Any observations you´d like to share?