Again, forgive the delay on my updates, until I find myself a new job, it'll probably continue. :(
The fingers combing through Jack's hair were damn near perfect, the blunt fingertips scratching lightly at his scalp in a way that brought gooseflesh up on his arms and down the back of his neck. Jack hummed quietly in appreciation, tipping his head back into the motion, eyes closed with pleasure. The laugh rumbled through his companion, shaking Jack as well all along the length of their bodies where they were pressed together, side by side. Jack wanted to open his eyes proper and see, to speak, to lean into his mystery lover and touch back, but his whole body felt lax; warm and weighty with sleep and the unexpected joy of the moment. Hot breath huffed across his face once, then twice; his partner was laughing at him. Jack could only whine in response, pushing his hips forward in a silent plea for what he needed most of all. Jack's stiffened prick wept with need, the wet head leaving sticky little patches on his stomach as it twitched, begging to be touched. The larger body beside him uncurled, slid downward, and Jack felt himself arch involuntarily, hips lifting in offering toward his unseen partner. Still unable to open his eyes to watch the proceedings, Jack undulated against the soft moss of the nest he lay in, empty and naked and needy, fingers clutching uselessly in the air at his sides.
Nest. Bunny's nest.
Bunny.
Oh, Fuck.
The realization hit Jack just as the dream crested; with the heat of a furry face settling between Jack's slim thighs to nuzzle against his modest manhood. The first imaginings of that searing breath against his most sensitive of flesh had Jack's orgasm slamming into him in a rush like a blow to the head; all dizziness and spots flaring behind clenched eyelids, the oversized bathrobe he was clad in now wetted with the unmistakable flood of liquid pleasure. Which, fuck it all, really sucked because not only was he now tacky, the damn thing would have to be washed.
Again.
For the third day in a row.
Ever since the enforced bath, Jack hadn't been able to clear his head. Bunny had kept creeping in, slipping through all the back doors of his mind, like he had absolutely no regard for the fact that Jack had spent years constructing a mental fortress strong enough to stand against the loneliness and solitude that had been most of his life so far. Jack had thought for sure his defenses were stronger than anything, but somehow fuzzy rabbit-shaped Guardians of Hope were the exception. The only, exceedingly annoying, not to mention confusing exception, and Jack wasn't sure how much more he could take. Okay, so admittedly, the wet dreams really weren't anything new. Jack hadn't really been making a regular habit of sleeping, at least not before he'd gone ten rounds with the Nightmare King and then nearly offed himself through overwork and what Jack knew now was dangerous levels of stubbornness and stupidity on his part. He had though, spent enough time in slumber over three centuries to have had more than a few racy dreams leave him sticky and frustrated come morning. Of course, that was before his most aggravating of all coworkers had decided to become the main attraction. No, now it was Bunny: Guardian of Hope and star of all Jack's suddenly far-to-frequent nocturnal fantasies, come see him today in the forefront of Jack's brain, live in and HD with surround sound! But wait, there's more, participate now and get an additional helping of awkward moments and muddled feelings absolutely free!
Jack also needed to stop watching late night infomercials over people's shoulders too, apparently.
Groaning and digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, Jack scrubbed the sleep from them until he saw starbursts. If only any of this could actually make sense somehow. Jack had always disliked Bunny, something about the other male just rubbing him the wrong way. And okay Jack hadn't really helped matters much, what with the whole Easter '68 debacle, and then the latest flub-up with Pitch, but the others at least had seemed prepared to give him a shot, a favour Jack was eventually happy to return, once he'd warmed up to the idea. Bunny had shut him down right from the starting gate though, and that still stung. Not that Jack hadn't deserved it maybe. Well, more like definitely, but still, for some reason Bunny's opinion mattered to Jack in a way that no one else, even North's seemed to. Bunny's words had weight, but so did his silences, and Jack wanted to learn to navigate that territory, to earn the right to Bunny's thoughts and feelings legitimately, to be a part of his council, of his confidences. Perhaps it was the challenge of it, after Pitch Jack knew that the others would welcome him with open arms, and while they weren't well acquainted yet, they certainly could be in a short amount of time if only because the others were willing to share themselves with him. If they were all open windows however, Bunny was a locked door, likely with a spike pit in front of it and guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. Bunny was shut down tighter than anyone Jack had ever seen before himself included, and something in that spoke to him. Like versus like crying out to one another perhaps, a mutual recognition of pain. At last, Jack assumed it was mutual. Bunny had been looking at him differently lately, like Jack was something to be peeled back in layers until the very meat of him was all raw and exposed. A part of Jack though maybe, just maybe, he wanted to let Bunny try, just to see what would happen.
The thought made Jack blanch a bit when he realized just how many inadvertent sexual implications he'd manage to charge one simple idea with. Really, he wasn't usually like this, but then Bunny had gone and made allusions about how he was spending his time in the bath, and his mostly-ignored hormones were more than ready to take the lead and go charging right off the cliff into some bizarre sexual awakening. Could you have a sexual awakening a three hundred plus years old? For the sake of his sanity, Jack desperately wanted to say no, but he had a sneaky suspicion he'd only be lying to himself. Jack and seen and done a lot of different things during his decades alone, many of which he was less than proud of, but sex was one field that Jack still found himself mostly clueless in. Well, he understood the mechanics, but it was in the same abstract way that someone who'd only read about an elephant could imagine what it looked like. He had no hands-on experience, no pun intended. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that most spirits didn't really dig the whole teenage frozen corpse deal for a sex partner. Not that Jack had been without offers, there had been a couple brave souls, but it had become very obvious in each circumstance before they'd even stolen a kiss that they wanted him precisely because he was a teenage frozen corpse, or some combination of the three. Which was such a turn off, knowing that they were only looking to satisfy a fetish with Jack's willing flesh. Jack felt kind of dirty just thinking about what it would have been like to have let them take what they wanted. He could only imagine they would have fucked him like a piece of decorative furniture and left him as soon as the orgasm ended, and really, Jack wasn't the most romantic dude in the world, but he at least wanted to like the guy who popped his cherry. Or girl, possibly, but most likely guy, because from what Jack had seen in his human memories and felt in all the time since, he'd always preferred the thought of taking a cock over being the guy doing the taking. And boy was he glad that the spirit world didn't really give a shit about homosexuality the way the human world did, because in his day he'd have hung or burnt for it if he'd ever been caught. Not exactly the way he'd want to go. Of course, he'd gone and got himself drowned before it ever became an issue, which wasn't something one would usually be thankful for, but in this case seemed to be working out for Jack just fine.
Sighing with frustration at the way his thoughts kept chasing themselves down the same paths they'd been over the last few days, Jack sat up, wincing as the fabric at his groin pulled a bit where it was stuck to his skin with the motion. Nothing for it though, he'd have to peel the whole mess off and sneak to the bathroom. With any luck he'd be able to slip into a quick bath and scrub the robe before Bunny came to get him for breakfast. He'd been successful the last two days, and while Jack had flushed about a hundred shades of blue and frosty as he hung the robe on the line to dry, Bunny had said and done nothing but raise a single eyebrow at him. Which was completely out of character for the guy that seemed to live to rub all of Jack's shit into his face at every available opportunity, but Jack wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He had no doubt that Bunny knew what was going on though, after all there weren't many reason for a teenage boy to need to wash his sleep clothes every single morning, and Bunny was many things but a fool was not one of them. Regardless, whatever Bunny's motivations were for keeping quiet, Jack couldn't' help but feel ridiculously grateful for the silence on the matter. He was humiliated enough by his body's rebellion as it was and having some lagomorph-of-unusual-size commenting on it might have just convinced him to commit ritualistic suicide to spare himself the mortification. Jack had gotten the sex talk exactly once from his human mother, about a year before his death when he'd first descended into the throes of adolescent hormonal hell, and that was bad enough, he wasn't going to put up with any snarky shit from the rabbit, thanks! Throwing the quilt back, Jack made to stand so as to escape to the bathroom, but was brought up short by Bunny himself entering the room. It was a knee-jerk reaction to yank the quilt back over his lap to hide the evidence of his night-time naughty thoughts, but he didn't think it had done much good when he caught Bunny's face from the corner of his eye. The Pooka froze in the doorway, nose twitching like he'd picked up an interesting scent, and oh fuckitall, he knew. When their eyes met, the moment pregnant with awkward tension, Jack didn't need to see the gleam in them to know that it was the truth. Bunny could smell it on him, in the air, in the fabric of his robe and the quilt. Jack had brought himself off enough times alone in dark corners to know that sex had a smell; and while it had faded enough to his own nose to be unnoticeable, Bunny had proven in previous circumstances that his senses were much better than the average human's. There was no doubt he smelled Jack's release, and had guessed what had happened. Or worse, maybe Bunny thought that Jack had been pulling it in his nest, which, ew, totally not on his list of top ten things to do, ever. While pissing Bunny off did have his merits, someone else's bed was kind of sacrosanct, and Jack had no intention of despoiling the nest unless Bunny was there to do the despoiling right along with him.
Dear Jack, please delete that last thought from your mental database, you'll thank yourself later.
With a forced cough, Jack tore his eyes away from his hosts, ready to end the silent battle of wills in order to hide his embarrassment as best he could. There was no way Bunny could ignore this, and any minute now, he was going to tear Jack a new one, or commence with the mocking, and whatever it was Jack hoped he'd get on with it so he could toss in his two cents with a large helping of bitter sarcasm and move on with his day. Usually a verbal spar with Bunny was a welcome opportunity to sharpen his already deadly claws on the other, but today he was just so tired of the whole charade, he just wanted to take his lumps and try again tomorrow. Things had been weird between them lately, and Jack wasn't quite sure what to do to regain the expected equilibrium. He felt his shoulders tense, staring holes into the quilt as Bunny stepping forward right to the edge of the nest. Jack waited for something, anything, but was still somehow completely unprepared for the rush of fabric past his face, landing onto his lap with a soft smack. Blinking in shock, Jack took in the thick, dark-washed denim, thin white cotton and rich royal blue taking up real estate on his thighs.
"Here kid, put those on after your bath." Jack frosted again in shame, knowing that Bunny knew damn well why he'd be taking said bath, and yet the flutter of gratitude in his gut to Bunny for not stating the reason aloud calmed him. Despite that though, nothing in Bunny's statement helped with Jack's most pressing concern, which was finding out what the hell was in his lap.
"Bunny, what the hell is in my lap?" Okay, verbal filter is turned off today obviously. Oh well, the direct approach wasn't all bad, Jack figured. It was bound to get him answers faster than just dancing around the issue with heavy doses of witty banter would, anyways.
"It's clothes, Jack. Y'know, those bits of fabric you hairless one's wear so you're junk isn't flapping about in the breeze all day. I want you to put them on after you bathe, so we can burn the old ones." That had Jack blinking in surprise, unable to prevent the next words from flying out of his lips.
"But, why?" Jack almost smacked himself for sounding like such a country bumpkin, no wonder Bunny was giving him the eyebrow of doom again.
"Why what? Why burn the old ones? Because they're no longer fit for dogs to wear, much less frost spirits that are now very high profile and did I mention suddenly visible to all and sundry? Or did you mean, why wear the new ones? Because I don't fancy the thought of your bare backside all over my furniture. Any other questions now princess, or can I go back to cooking for your ungrateful arse?" Bunny had straightened up while he spoke, arms crossing over his impressive chest and Jack couldn't help but feel foolish, and perhaps slightly intimidated.
"Yeah, fine, whatever. Don't wreck the porridge, old man." Grunting his annoyance, Bunny turned and his heel and strode out, slamming the door with a finality that let Jack know he'd succeeded in pissing the other off. Great, not exactly what he'd set out to do, but too late now. With a sigh, Jack stood, scooping up the new clothing and making his way to the bathing chambers. He washed quickly, scrubbing out the robe and chucking the damp mass into a laundry basket to take upstairs to the line. He then towelled off quickly, before his slowly renewing powers started causing the drops to freeze to his skin. He was somewhat perturbed by the implication that his old clothing was unfit to be worn anymore. The pants were one of the last links to his human past remaining, save his newfound memories, and Jack was admittedly reluctant to let them go. He couldn't deny however that they were increasingly threadbare and were long past the point that jack could continue to repair them. Grudgingly, Jack admitted that it was time for replacements, if only to spare himself the embarrassment of having them fall off in front of a bunch of kids or something. Jack figured he could always persuade Bunny to let Jack keep them as opposed to burning, anyways. Just because he couldn't wear them anymore didn't mean that he couldn't still hold on to them for sentimental reason.
Decision made and mind soothed, it was only then that Jack allowed himself to examine the new outfit. The dark denim was unsurprisingly a pair of skinny jeans, which, while ankle-length unlike the pants he'd been wearing, would probably at least fit similarly enough to not bother him. The white cotton turned out to be a t-shirt, plain and unadorned with a simple v-neck and sized to fit snugly, but not skin-tight. The royal blue was another hoodie, this one with a zipper up the front he could open to show off the t-shirt underneath if he wanted. The sleeves were a touch longer than his old one, and came equipped with built-in thumb holes in the cuffs, which after trying out Jack decided he very much liked. The hood was nice and deep; allowing him to cast his whole face into shadow when pulled up, which was a habit of Jack's when he was feeling depressed, or uneasy. The material and textures were new and different, feeling strange against his skin, but all in all the outfit was perfect, both in size and style. As Jack stood in front of the mirror taking it all in, he couldn't help but wonder at the fact that Bunny had somehow, without even asking, clothed him exactly as Jack would have clothed himself.
Now, if only Jack could figure out exactly when the boy in the mirror had become a stranger to him, then, to borrow a phrase, everything would be apples.