Rating: T, for the final part.
"Aaaaaaaahhhh!"
Thump. Thunk!
"Ow!" Jamie slid off the egg sentinel and onto the ground, rubbing his bottom. Ethan scrambled to his feet and laughed, pointing at his uncle. The boy's tousled hair and clothes were disarrayed and he looked as though a tornado had caught him and spat him out. Which wasn't very far from the truth. As Jamie grinned at him, he couldn't help noticing a wild look in those green eyes. The boy looked as though he was on caffeine overdose. For a moment, Jamie's breath caught in his throat. Could Ethan be...?
"That was amazing, Jack! I wanna go again!" the boy cheered, bouncing eagerly on the balls of his feet as the winter spirit grinned at his antics. He leaped, trying to bring himself up to Jack's height. "All that wind and whoosh! and... and..." That was when the boy started to grow aware of his surroundings. His jaw went slack and his green orbs widened, as they took in the landscape around him. A few non-word sounds escaped from the depths of his throat. Jamie and Jack couldn't help laughing at the look on the boy's face.
Jamie pulled out his book from his coat pocket. "Heads up, Easterboy!" The child snapped out of his reverie, turned and caught the book just in time as it hit his chest. "Turn to the chapter on Easter. And tell me if you think your mom managed to capture this place perfectly."
Ethan flipped to the contents page, as Jack knelt next to him. Ethan shot him a small smile, and turned back to the page. The chapter 'Saving Easter' was clearly written somewhere in the middle, with a page number following it, but Ethan was still scanning the other chapters. He shook his head slightly. A small frown creased his brows.
"What's wrong?" asked Jack, peering over the boy's shoulder. There didn't seem to be any defects.
In a few quick strides, Jamie was at his nephew's side. He gently prised it from the boy's hands, noticing the mournful look that had crossed his face. Jamie glanced up and exchanged one brief look with the winter spirit, both of them completely clueless as to what had dismayed the child.
"What's going on here?"
All three heads turned to see a six-foot tall figure approaching. As Bunny came into view, the strange look on Ethan's face disappeared as one of utter bewilderment replaced it. He turned to the other two behind him, looking from Jamie to Jack, and back again. "Do kangaroos live here?" he asked, excitedly. Jack let out a shout of laughter. He turned back to face Bunny. "Kangaroo!"
"Excuse me?" Bunny looked annoyed.
Jack leaned on his staff for support as laughter racked his body. Jamie stepped forwards and rested a hand on his nephew's shoulder. He flipped to the chapter on Easter, where one of Sophie's illustrations of Bunny was printed, and handed it over to the boy. "It's the Easter Bunny, Ethan."
Bunny stared at the child, inching closer. "That..." he began.
"The Easter Bunny mama always talked about?" Ethan asked, peering at the illustration before lowering the book and looking the guardian over, from top to bottom, and back up again. He turned to Jamie. "But he looks so much like a kangaroo. Mama told me he was big and tall and strong, but... not kangaroo-like."
"The kid agrees with me," Jack grinned.
Bunny didn't look offended. He just continued staring at the boy. "And who's your mama?" he asked softly, hesitantly.
Ethan looked up, slightly startled by the guardian's question. Two pairs of green eyes met. Jamie noticed Bunny's widen conspicuously. "My mama?" the boy replied. "Uh, her name is..." He scrunched up his face, as though trying to remember. "... Sophie Bennett. I think. She rarely tells me her name." He gestured at Jamie. "And this is her brother, my uncle Jamie!" He smiled at the guardian, before holding out a hand. "And my name is Ethan Aster..." Bunny cocked an eyebrow. "... and you are the Easter Bunny?"
Bunny's gaze travelled down to the boy's outstretched hand, and he looked at it as though it was a weapon he would have to use to kill all he loved. Slowly, he took it and they shook hands. "You have your mama's eyes," he remarked.
"Everyone says that!" Ethan said, brightly.
A silence settled on the group while the boy looked from one face to the other. "So... let's give this boy a tour. Show him how Easter is made," Jack finally spoke, breaking the silence.
Bunny sighed, before putting on an encouraging smile and taking the boy's hand. "Come on, you little ankle-biter. Ever wondered where your Easter eggs come from?"
Jack glanced at Jamie, but stayed silent, sensing the adult had something to say. "So, is it normal for you guardians to get really attached to children you happen to have spent a lot of time with when they were younger?" he finally asked.
Jack looked at an egg sentinel. "Sometimes."
"What happens when they..." Jamie stopped.
Jack shrugged. "I don't really know. Most of my believers are... well, young. You could ask the other guardians."
Jamie shoved his hands into his pockets and watched the figures of Bunny and Ethan in the distance, walking amongst the millions of eggs. Rather than running about as they did all those years ago, the eggs were mostly just sauntering about, taking their time getting painted. Easter was still months away. Jamie smiled. Humans were not alone. Eggs, too, were expert procrastinators.
What was it like to be immortal? Jamie glanced at Jack, and tried to imagine for one moment, what it was like to be able to live forever, to never age or worry about death. It was incredible. But then again, Jack and the other guardians were already dead...
"Uncle Jamie!" came Ethan's excited screams, and disturbing thoughts ebbed away from Jamie's mind.
#
Jamie sneaked a glance out of one of the windows of the workshop, and got a mini heart attack.
The first rays of dawn was starting to stretch across the Russian sky. Jamie did several quick mental calculations and hurried deeper into the workshop, pushing past the yetis.
"Easterboy! North!"
The child looked up from a toy robot, his eyes gleaming. His smile fell when he saw Jamie's face. Adults always had that look. "Can we stay a little longer? Please?" he implored, before yawning.
"You can't even keep your eyes open, kid," Jamie remarked, grinning. "Your mama's gonna be worried sick." More than that, he thought. She's gonna kill me.
"I don't wanna go back home," Ethan pouted. "They're always shouting at home." He suddenly looked teary. Jamie's smile faltered.
"What?"
"They're always shouting. At each other. And..." He mimicked a punch. "Papa sometimes does that to mama." He was teary. "I don't wanna go home. Don't make me go home!" He ran over to North, and hid behind the big man, peeping out at Jamie.
Jamie swallowed. He felt like his guts were being churned in a washing machine. He plunged his hand into his pocket and withdrew a cellphone, which had been turned off. Could he get a signal, up there in the North Pole? He doubted it. He dropped it back into his pocket, and turned to North. "I shouldn't ask this of you, North, but..."
"The boy can stay here if he wants to. I have room. And you can, too."
The last thing Jamie wanted was to get North under the impression that he thought the workshop as some sort of hotel. If Jamie was right about what he thought of Ethan's words... he wanted to mull it over. Another one of the last things he wanted was to get on his sister's bad side.
"What about Sophie?" Jack asked. "I mean, isn't she going to pick him up or something?"
"She'll know," Jamie smiled. His eyes wandered over to a table, where a yeti was busy wrapping books. "Do you mind?" Jamie swiped one book off the table as the yeti gave an incoherent approval, and turned to his nephew. "Hey, kid, since you're a little sleepy, what do you say we read a bedtime story?"
"But it's morning." He pointed out one of the windows nearby.
"Yeah, but it's night over there. You still have to get some sleep."
"Okay, but as long as you don't make me read."
#
Jamie drew the curtains as Ethan curled up on the bed in a room in the part of the workshop away from all the hustle and bustle of preparing for the fast-approaching Christmas. He perched at the end of the bed and pried open the book, flipping to chapter one. "Hey, Easterboy. Do you like stories?"
Ethan's face lit up. "Yes, of course. Especially that story you told me about the Battle of Burgess."
"The one that I told you," Jamie echoed. He glanced down at the book in his hands, before handing it to Ethan, who recoiled away from it.
"Don't make me read!" he whined.
Jamie scooted closer to his nephew. "Hey, I need you to be honest with me." He gently placed the book in the boy's hands. "Tell me, truthfully, what do you see when you look at these words?"
The boy peered at the page. "I... I don't like alphabets," he said.
"What do you see?"
"The letters... they look funny. And sometimes... sometimes they float around. They make funny words."
Jamie reached deeper into another one of his pockets and pulled out a notebook, with a pencil stuck through the binders. One of Jamie's philosophies was that a writer should never be without their notebook. He passed it over to Ethan. "Can you do me a favour? Please write your name."
Ethan twirled the pencil a little with his fingers as though he was unsure of how to hold it. When he finally gripped it, there was a long moment of hesitation before he started writing.
Σthɒn Aztɘr
Jamie frowned. He wondered if Sophie knew. And if she did, why didn't she tell him?
#
"So, where did you take him? Helped North out with Christmas preparations? Snowball Armageddon with Jack?" Sophie asked, as soon as she opened the door, before her brother could say anything.
"All of the above and several others," Jamie responded, with a sheepish grin, as Ethan walked past his mother and into the house. "Sophie, is John home?"
"No, he didn't return home last night. Why?"
"Nothing."
#
Jamie stifled a yawn as he made his way quietly through the back gate of the house. The backyard was riddled with weeds and cracked flowerpots housing wilted flowers. As he crept closer, he could smell something cooking in the kitchen. Jamie suppressed his urge to laugh. Sophie? In the kitchen? Cooking? It was unheard of.
Jamie settled behind a bush beneath an open window, made himself comfortable and reveled in the aroma wafting from the kitchen. Was that even Sophie? Man, she got good fast. He occasionally heard a child's voice which he identified as Ethan's. And the occasional masculine coughs and rustling paper. Everyone was in place.
He tilted his head up and admired the orange hues cast across the sky by the setting sun. It was a good thing Sophie's new home was located in that deserted area, as no one had seen him enter through the back gate.
"Where was the boy last night?" spoke the masculine voice, startling Jamie slightly. It was so near the window. He laid perfectly still, curled up behind the bush. He'd worn dark green for the occasion and began to pray his effort at camouflage would pay off.
"With my brother." Sophie sounded annoyed.
A loud, raspy laugh filled Jamie's ears and made him cringe. He was quite certain John was looking out of the window, though he couldn't see for sure. "I told you not to. Why did you?" Jamie fought back the longing to stand and punch that creep in the face. That is, if he was looking out of the window.
"He's my brother. What harm could he come to?" There was a loud clang and Jamie figured it was probably the lid of a pot, encountering his sister on the warpath.
There was a loud scuffle of footsteps and a loud sound that made Jamie jump. It wasn't another pot lid. A moment later, just as Jamie was about to rise from his hiding place, the window he had been sitting beneath slammed shut. The shouting began inside, but it was faint. Jamie got to his feet and stepped out of the bush, only to quickly retreat behind it as Ethan ran out of the back door, sobbing.
Jamie hurried round to the front door; the shouts decreased in volume. He rapped loudly. He heard several quick footsteps before Sophie opened the door, her eyes red.
"Jamie!" She was startled. "You didn't..."
"Why are your eyes red?" her brother asked.
"What? Oh, this... um, onions. You know. They make you tear up."
To Sophie's surprise, her brother gave her a small shove, and walked past her into the house. He made a beeline for the living room, where he found John, his hateful brother-in-law, seated on the couch and innocently reading a newspaper. The latter looked up at Jamie's entrance.
"Jamie," he greeted, before returning to his newspaper.
"Jamie, what are you doing?" Sophie hurried to her brother's side. "What are you doing here?"
John got to his feet and calmly dropped the newspaper onto the couch. He went over to Sophie and placed his hands on her shoulders. Jamie was almost certain he saw his sister flinch. "Jamie can join us for dinner if he wants to," he said, faking a smile.
Jamie didn't respond. His eyes darted from John's smirking face to Sophie's questioning look. His eyes studied her red ones. Ethan's words and actions replayed in his head. And then his mind flashed back further. Sophie in the hospital. Her being riddled with bruises. It had been after the beating... Something inside him snapped. Sophie didn't deserve any of this.
Jamie was not really a violent person. And he didn't really have a warped sense of appropriate behaviour, especially in his sister's house. And the closest he had ever come to martial arts was reading the back cover of the Go Rin No Sho. But when anger and adrenaline suddenly began coursing through his veins, he had only one thought in mind: to make the future of the man standing before him nothing but a permanent bleak twilight.
The first thing that sprang to his mind, as his fist got acquainted with his brother-in-law's face was a silent plea to Ethan, to not come rushing in at that moment.
"Jamie!" Sophie screamed, as she ducked out of the way. Jamie grimaced. He could only hope John's face hurt as much as his fist did. John stumbled backwards a few steps before regaining his balance. Tentatively, he touched several fingers to his lip, and gazed at the blood on them.
Jamie leaped out of the way just in time as John lunged at him. The guy grabbed the back of a couch to steady himself. He was breathing hard, and the look on his face was murderous. His glare flickered over to Sophie, who stood rooted to the spot, not making a move to help her husband. But she placed a good distance between herself and her brother as well. The look on her face made Jamie turn away from his brother-in-law to face her.
"Sophie, I..." Jamie began, but he was cut short as the side of his face exploded in pain.
As Jamie fell backwards against the wall, narrowly missing a decorative vase on a pedestal nearby, Sophie rushed forwards and grabbed her husband's hand, that was ready to deliver another blow to Jamie's face. "Stop it, please!" she yelled, but he merely gave her a death glare. "Do you really want Ethan to see you like this? I think he's seen enough," Sophie quickly went on, in case he suddenly decided to hit her.
Jamie blinked, as he slowly got to his feet. Sophie had two heads... was that even possible? He groaned slightly as he struggled to get back on his feet, but the room seemed to be spinning.
Sophie yelped as her husband shoved her to the side, and advanced on Jamie. The latter avoided the next punch and John growled as his fist made contact with the wall. He instinctively rolled out of the way. Jamie began to wish he had signed up for some self-defence classes in the past. For one moment, he imagined flipping John onto the ground at his feet- flat on his back. But it wouldn't work anyway. John was about twice as big as Jamie, the latter was almost certain he would have no problem picking him up and hurling him a hundred yards.
The vase smashed as it hit John's head, and left several cuts, but the latter seemed only angrier. Jamie cursed himself. Even with a weapon, he was pathetic.
John was huge. He was slow. As John came in for another hit, Jamie leaped out of the way just in time. Instinctively, he moved forwards and as fast as he could, threw a punch at the guy's face, and followed up with a random shot from his other hand, before allowing the momentum to carry him forward. Without much thought, he grabbed John's bulky leg and held on as though his life depended on it, before driving his head into his brother-in-law. John's head struck the coffee table as he tripped backwards and lost his balance.
Jamie had almost been certain Ethan might have ADHD, back when they were at the Warren, but at that moment, he was wondering if he had it too. But as John sat up, shooting Jamie a look that said he wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he could, the latter realised he had other problems to worry about.
Jamie began to wonder if Jack could suddenly show up deus ex machina. That would be great.
As his body hit the floor, Jamie was quite certain this was his end. And John's foot making contact with his gut just confirmed that once more. So did the next kick to his head. Fireworks seemed to explode in his head and before his eyes.
John was in the process of administering another kick at Jamie's head when a loud thunk! seemed to echo in the living room. John crumpled to the floor like a rag doll. Sophie was on her knees beside her brother in seconds.
"Are you alright?" she managed to choke out through a steady stream of tears.
Jamie wanted to respond and assure her that he was fine when everything went black.
I am so sorry for this late update. I just... kind of ran into a case of writer's block for this. I did know Sophie would be in an abusive relationship and Jamie would lose his cool, but I couldn't get it out into words. And now, I finally did, but it sucks. Sorry, once more.
Reviews would be highly appreciated.