Okay this is later than I wanted but I won't bore you with excuses.

Requested first by silentshadow, but many times after that by various others. I'm sorry for the long wait, no I didn't forget, and I hope it meets expectations!

Disclaimed.

...

Spoon-Feeding

...

It took just over a month for Jack to notice. In that month, he'd visited each of the Guardians at least once, and each time they had welcomed him warmly as they usually did and invited him to join them for a meal. Now, to Jack, none of this was overly suspicious; he had a tendency to arrive around a mealtime, and the other Guardians needed to eat far more frequently than he did. But when he met up with Sandy over Norway in the middle of the night to find the little man with a full-on picnic basket full of food that he was very intent on sharing... well, it was hard to not be suspicious.

Clearly, they hadn't forgotten about the whole 'not eating' thing.

Honestly, it was ridiculous. It wasn't like he was starving himself. He just genuinely didn't need to eat more than once every couple of weeks. He'd realised it fairly quickly after that first night at the pond – he'd made himself sick by trying to keep a regular schedule of three meals a day (a habit that had transferred over from his human years) – and, really, it was just as well. There wasn't a lot of food on offer in the middle of winter.

But, for some reason, the Guardians simply refused to accept that.

And, so, when the time came for another Guardian meeting, Jack was fully prepared to fight off whatever they tried to shove down his throat this time.

He was not, however, prepared for the sight that greeted him when he landed in the Globe Room. As had been the norm for previous meetings, the Guardians had gathered around the fireplace on a number of couches and armchairs, with a table in the middle for a plate of cookies and their drinks. This time, however, it seemed North had forgone the usual milk and cookies affair and decided to go with milk and a mountain. Because that was definitely what it was. A complete mountain of food. There was so much of it, he'd had to use several serving towers just to fit it all on the table.

For a long moment, Jack simply hovered in the air and stared. This had to be a joke... right? There was no way they would take it this far. His mind, unbidden, reminded him of the shoe incident and answered that, yes, they really would take it this far. He seriously considered just turning around and flying off right then and there, but any plans of escape were dashed when North spotted him and waved him over with a hearty greeting.

Jack took a seat as far away from the food as he possibly could, which meant he was a little closer to the fire than he would have liked, but sacrifices had to be made. Desperate times and all that.

"Um, hello," he said. His smile was pained.

"Hello, Jack!" Tooth beamed at him. Bunny, on the other side of the table, nodded, and Sandy waved enthusiastically.

"So..." Jack glanced at the table, "uh, what's going on?"

"I thought instead of usual morning or afternoon tea we have proper meal together this time," North replied, looking very pleased with himself.

"That's... North, that's not a meal, that's a whole harvest." His human family had survived on less than that for an entire winter on more than one occasion. If he really thought about it, that mountain of food could probably feed the colonial village of Burgess for a month and still have some left over. They didn't really expect to eat it all, did they?

"Eat as much as you like!"

Sandy did not need any further encouragement. The words were barely out of North's mouth before he was starting to heap a plate full of a wide assortment of things, topped off with, of course, a glass of eggnog. North followed suit in much the same manner. He, like Sandy, had a black hole for a stomach.

Bunny and Tooth were considerably more picky and nowhere near as ravenous (though Jack suspected Sandy didn't need to eat at all and simply did because he enjoyed it), the former looking for vegetarian options and the latter seeking sugar-free.

Jack remained still, watching them all carefully and wondering how long it would take before they started hounding him. He wasn't hungry, and he had absolutely no intention of eating now.

Exactly thirty seconds later, Tooth smiled at him around her slice of watermelon and said, "You should try some of this, it's really juicy."

It begins, Jack mentally grimaced. "I'm good. I ate a few days ago with Sandy." Because, really, Sandy could be very pushy when he wanted to be. And Jack knew better than to upset him.

The smorgasbord paused as they all turned to stare at him. Jack shifted uncomfortably but refused to back down.

"What have ya eaten today, mate?" Bunny asked, putting down his plate of salad.

"Nothing," Jack shrugged. "I told you I ate the other day. Sandy can vouch for it."

"Jack, you must eat more! You are as thin as rake!" North cried.

"I don't need to eat that often!" Jack protested. "Just like Tooth barely needs to sleep, or you, for that matter!"

"Tooth and North aren't wastin' away, Frostbite," Bunny pointed out. Sandy, beside him, watched with silent intensity.

"I'm not wasting away," Jack rolled his eyes. "I could eat three meals a day and not put any weight on. And do you want to know why? Because the last time I tried to do that I threw up from overeating."

"But when you are half-starved–" North began but Jack quickly cut him off.

"What part of 'I don't need to eat that often' do you people not understand? This has nothing to do with being starved or not I just genuinely do not need to eat. It's just the way I am." Probably had something to do with not actually being alive (just like how he didn't really need to sleep, but he did that far more regularly than he ate), but he decided it would be in bad taste to mention that.

The Guardians shared a look that spoke volumes. Clearly, they were unconvinced. But he didn't want to make a big deal out of it, because that usually led to arguments and upsets and he was trying to see things from their point of view. He knew they were only doing it because they were worried about him, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"Look," Jack sighed. "I know you're only trying to get me to eat more because you care, but trust me on this. I know my body better than you guys do."

Sandy held out a small dish of yoghurt, and North agreed, "Just eat little bit. Does not have to be a lot."

Jack heaved a sigh but relented. It wouldn't do any harm to have a little, and it was better to just accept the inevitable than to keep kicking up a fuss. But if they thought this was going to be a regular occurrence, then they had another thing coming.

.

.

As it turned out, it did become a regular occurrence, but only a fraction of the scale it had been. When Jack returned to the Pole a few weeks later, he had barely landed before a yeti handed him a plate of crackers and cheese, pointing very sternly and making it very clear exactly what it expected to happen.

Jack, rolling his eyes, replied, "Yes, mom," before disappearing around a corner. He ate maybe two of the crackers before slipping the rest of them to the elves, who were ecstatic by the offering. Jack had smugly handed the plate back five minutes later to a very pleased yeti. It was a win-win-win, really.

The other Guardians were a bit harder to dupe. There weren't any elves at the Warren or the Tooth Palace, and definitely none on Sandy's cloud of dreamsand. And it wasn't like he could just pawn the food off to the fairies, given the whole hive-mind thing they had going on. On the occasion that he went to the Palace and had some fruit forced upon him he was forced to eat it or 'save it for tonight'. There were too many witnesses.

Bunny was more manageable in that he wasn't quite as pushy. But he still offered food more often than not. Jack sometimes accepted it, sometimes didn't. He never ate it at the Warren, though, and Bunny never seemed to expect him to.

Jack never ran across Sandy with a picnic basket again, but on the odd occasion he had a lunchbox. Like with the others, he sometimes ate it and sometimes didn't. But what it all added up to was a rather large hoard of food he had no idea what to do with.

That is, until a thought struck him as he was flying over an impoverished region of India. It wasn't hard to leave small sacks of food where the kids would find them, and seeing their faces light up at the sight of them was definitely worth it. It was the perfect solution: the kids were happy, Jack was happy, and the Guardians were oblivious but happy in their ignorance. And if they ever found out? Well... Jack didn't think they'd be too mad.

Guest Review Responses:

Willow Lark: Thank you!

EriTheBear: Thank you so much for your kind words ^w^ And I'm really glad that I was able to help you, even if it was indirectly. Requests will be open again once I get through the list (and judging from previous responses I think all the final chapters (except the last one) will be requests, but that's okay), but I can't give a definite date because I'm hopeless and keeping a schedule for writing. Happy holidays to you too!

logintakes4ever: Naw thank you so much! X33 I think this series has really helped me improve as a writer, and it's nice to see that other people agree XD