You guyyyyyyyyysafeioafjioewjf. \(^o^)/
Thank you for all the reviews, favorites, follows, on and on for days~
I'm sympathetic to your feels, truly I am. But I'm also glad you're having so many of them. Cos that was my intent. I'm sorry - unless I'm not.
Have some more feels.
The Wind broke his fall.
It cradled him and carried him to a secluded wood, laying him gently in a clearing. It fretted at his hair and tugged his shirt, tried to make him stir, but he wouldn't. He shuddered and dreamed in groans for hours. All the Wind could do was list over him in a comforting way, unable to sing or murmur as a mother does a lullaby or a bedtime story. Until Jack Frost woke up, the Wind could only wait, sweep the snowflakes away as they landed.
Help finally came after the sun rose. It bounded from the shadows, rhythmic heavy footfalls approaching the clearing, and the Wind pulled it closer as much as it could.
Tall ears cast long shadows in the sharply-angled light, when shafts of red and lime-green cloud pushed away the grey of early dawn. The Wind let out a quivering breeze despite its gratitude; it knew the animosity Bunnymund held for Jack Frost, but it hoped his immense care for life would overpower any ill regard.
Bunnymund had in fact been hunting for Jack Frost. The winter sprite had teased with snow in early spring before, but rarely on Easter and never with this magnitude. And for no reason whatsoever, it seemed; the worst he had ever done was shoo the tin lid away for distracting him – Bunny didn't have time to babysit when he had to coordinate a planet of egg hunts every year.
Landing at Frost's shoulder, Bunnymund tapped a foot impatiently. The deadhead had gone and shelled North America in snow, and then fallen asleep. Not even bothered to hide himself from Bunny's wrath – and oh, wrath had he.
"Oi," he growled, nudging Jack's scalp with a thickly-furred toe, "Oi! Wake up, yah great bludger."
Jack groaned and rolled his head, turning onto his side. A pillow of snow right in his face startled him into wakefulness and he bolted upright, blinking in surprise. He gazed at the cold whiteness surrounding him in curious wonder, until his eyes zeroed on Bunny. His mouth flapped emptily in bafflement, and then what little color he had drained completely from his face.
"...It's Easter, isn't it?"
"Too bloody right, it is. Now what gave yah the high idea for all of this? What, January too predictable anymore?"
"Bunny," Jack tried to say, staggering to his feet, "I-"
"What could you possibly have to say?"
Jack held his arms out helplessly, eyes wide as the horrible truth occurred to him.
"I... I don't know why I did it."
Bunny's ears angled forward, crooking ominously. "You don't know," he repeated in a flat growl.
"I can't-"
"Come off the grass – yah mean yah just canceled a thousand miles of my egg hunts, and yah did it because you felt like it? My bloody oath, never your kind of galah..."
Jack's dismay shifted to stinging offense. "That is not what I said; stop putting your kangaroo words in my mouth."
"Yours you're making yourself ain't rightly helping yah out, mate," Bunny returned darkly. The brat had better bally well pull his head in and rack off if he wanted to avoid a rumble.
Jack understood the unspoken threat. It read in the blackening of Bunnymund's eyes, the way the coarse fur stuck out across his shoulders. Bunny towered a foot above him at full height and had more than twice his weight of coiled muscle. If Jack couldn't get away, he would never stand a chance.
The Pooka still stared him down with hard eyes, teeth just bared below his lip. He might have growled like a rottweiler. Jack took a step back.
"Bunny," he dared again when he'd taken a safe number of steps away, "I'm sorry. I-"
"Bloody right yah are. Now get the hell out of my sight. I've got your mess to deal with, now." Bunnymund would find a way around this. His googies would just stay fresh in the cold snow; he only needed to bring them to its surface, hide them in bushes instead of on the ground, so the ankle-biters could still find them and have Easter. Maybe. Recovering Easter was the least of anyone's problems right now... The incorrigible little frostbite could count himself lucky if none of the kids lost their belief over this.
Jack watched the Easter Bunny walk away from him, stricken. It really wouldn't come to him; he couldn't remember why he did this. Creating the blizzard was a black spot in his memory. He just woke up here, the Wind echoing in his ears...
An irrepressible loneliness welled inside of him and crushed his lungs under its weight. He didn't understand it. He drowned in it.
Away. He needed to get out. He couldn't breathe.
So Jack flew south and he did not stop until he reached the bottom of the earth. And there, he stayed.
Winter happened just fine without him. He only added the useless stuff.
The season didn't need him.
He only got in the way.
Made a mess of everything.
–
Fell winds howled around him in the blank white terrain. They drowned out his racing thoughts and their cacophony actually soothed him. He let himself go numb to his mind and his roiling emotions. Sitting on an icy outcropping that hung over a jagged chasm, gales blasting in every direction, was the most calming thing he had ever done. So Jack remained crouched on the spit of rock, arms wrapped around his knees, face buried. He didn't cry at the unfair way Bunnymund had treated him; he didn't cry about the lives he knew were lost (because of him). He cried because he just felt so tired.
Jack never did blizzards like that. Old Man Winter handled such ghastly things. And Jack always thought blizzards were a thing he shouldn't ever try to do anyway; something about them just didn't sit right in his spirit. They looked too strenuous for anything he wanted to do. So the idea that he, Jack Frost, had gone and made a blizzard stretching over multiple states, worried him – scared him, even. Part of him didn't want to know why. What could possibly have driven him to such a state, to create snow to exhaustion, fainting, and then blocking out the entire trauma?
...It had to have been a trauma. (A sickly chill rang into his bones.) Otherwise there was just no way. He had to have been out of his mind.
Jack wondered if he would ever know, ever recollect what happened.
Part of him hoped that he never, ever would.
–
"That was a beautiful snowstorm, Jack Frost."
He startled out of a doze, twisting where he sat. A tall shadow loomed several feet behind him. The harsh light must have claimed all his colors such that he only looked shades of grey and black. The phenomenon puzzled Jack, until he saw the glinting gold eyes and understood it wasn't the light; it was Pitch Black.
"Go away," he responded gruffly, turning away and curling himself more tightly. A low chuckle just reached him over the wind. Jack tensed in spite of himself.
"Oh, Frost, how I could I possibly? Surely you know who you're talking to?"
Jack didn't answer; maybe if he ignored him, he would go away.
An ice-cold fingertip, sharp like a talon, pierced into the back of his neck. As though he'd just been scruffed like a kitten, Jack froze on the spot. Color drained from his face in terror. "Who am I, Jack Frost? You can tell me."
He swallowed hard in an attempt to steady himself. "The Boogeyman."
Pitch hummed approvingly. "That's right. And you know why I've come, don't you?" Jack didn't answer this one; Pitch did not require him to. "I'm attracted to fear, you know. It feeds me, clothes me, makes me feel safe and at home. It's my bread and butter, the roof over my head. My powers run on fear, and I inspire further fear on my own. Such a wonderful life, you see." Finally the cold talon left the nape of Jack's neck, and he microscopically settled.
"So why are you here?" Jack spat before he could stop himself. He felt Pitch still for a moment, behind him.
"For you, Jack Frost."
"You don't want anything to do with me," Jack asserted, finally standing to face the dark man. "I can't do anything right, in case no one's told you."
Pitch smiled in a way that sent chills down Jack's spine. "Let me be the judge of that. I know what I saw," hands clasped behind his back like an appraising instructor, he bent forward until their eyes were level, "and truly, you were beautiful." Jack's entire body shrank away in disgust, and before he could think he held his staff before him with both hands, battle-ready. And the Boogeyman leaned back again and cackled.
"Oh-ho, do you think I'm in any way scared of you? A little snowdrift who's just drained all his power only hours ago? There's nothing you can do to me now, Jack."
Angry slivers of ice spat out the crook of his staff in retaliation; Jack narrowed his eyes. Pitch had no right...
"What else do I know, Jack? Is that what you fear?" Here Pitch smirked. "That was a rhetorical question, of course. I know what everyone fears."
"Shut up," Jack growled, thrusting his staff forward and crouching into a defensive stance, "I don't want to hear anything you have to say."
"Oh, but wouldn't you love to know why you did it?" His eyes glittered like shards of glass. Even more blood drained from Jack's face. "Ever heard of watching a train wreck, Frost? You say you can't bear to know what comes next, but you crave the full story all the same."
"This looks more like petty manipulation than inspiring fear," Jack dismissed in as steady a voice as he could manage. He knew Pitch could see right through it, but he could hardly stand there and take the abuse. He'd had enough of that sort of treatment already, thanks.
Pitch chuckled again, flashing his horrible jagged teeth. What Jack wouldn't give to just smack the grin off his face... "I am merely saying what the Man in the Moon refuses to tell you." His eyes sharpened at the momentary lapse in Jack's guard – but the sprite brought his staff up again with firmer intent in a second. "I'm attracted to fear, Jack; I can't help it. I am like a moth to a flame. And when that blizzard came, all that snow saturated with such lovely fear, like a waking nightmare – how could I possibly have resisted?"
The longer he tried to keep together, the more Jack felt about to fall apart. But he wouldn't – not in front of Pitch Black.
"Naturally, it could only have been you, Jack Frost. Even Winter doesn't pour so much negativity into his work. And such an impressive display, too; I never would have believed you were capable of that." He looked too much like an indulging parent. "And yet, now here we are."
This read wrong; Jack took a step away. He could just fly away now. But the situation indeed was like a train wreck: part of him wanted so badly to know, that it would seek the answers from a confirmed enemy?
"Whatever you're offering, I'm not interested," Jack said in a low voice. Pitch didn't blink.
"You're scared to know. Quite understandable. Especially when you can't know how you would handle the truth if you didn't like it, is that right?" He outright leered at Jack, and the sky grew darker above them. "After all, I must admit it is such a delightful change from the Jack Frost everyone thinks you are. You're more than just a nipper of noses after all, aren't you?"
"You shut up!" Jack shrieked, blasting ice at Pitch, but just so quickly he vanished. Pitch's cackling laughter echoed in the wind. Circling in place, staff held before him, Jack kept glancing over his shoulders.
"You've lost something, Frost. And I can promise you will never get it back on your own."
Jack jumped and spun around. He only faced the empty canyon.
"That is your one hint, since I am feeling generous this fine day." His voice came from below. Jack leaned carefully over the land spit; Pitch stood on the underside of it, gazing up at Jack. A bolt of ice shot down but Pitch dodged into the shadows again.
"Why give me a hint?" Jack murmured, though his mind already swarmed with deeper questions.
"The Man in the Moon will never give you the final answer, Jack Frost. But I will."
"I said shut up!" Jack grated out, crouching lower, still scanning around him. Pitch's cackles rang off the glacial walls. It echoed again and again; Jack wanted to stuff his ears, block it out. "Just leave me alone!"
"Fine." Pitch appeared directly behind him and Jack jumped with fright. No longer seeming amused, Pitch's features were close and somber. "Have it your way. For now." It couldn't be called a smile, but the corner of his mouth turned up all the same. "But you will think about it, won't you? You know how to summon me if you change your mind."
At such a close range he couldn't miss; Jack shot more ice, but quicker than he could blink the Boogeyman was gone again. And for good, it seemed; though Jack waited, slowly turning on the spot, he never reappeared.
Shaken, Jack rushed off the outcrop into the Wind, and it carried him up over the stormy clouds into the atmosphere above, until finally the blue sky spread above him. The sunlight glared hot-white off the clouds, and his temporary blindness distracted him long enough from his fear to rein in his thoughts.
Pitch Black knew what had caused the blizzard. Jack didn't.
No instinct told him how to feel about that.
With the way the Boogeyman had lorded the information over him, though... Did Jack Frost really want to know?
::You've lost something::
But what?
(Wasn't he still the same guy even if he'd made a horrible mistake just this once?)
Despite his best efforts, Jack's heart continued to sink. The Wind caressed his hair and neck, and Jack could barely react. All he had was a half-hearted "Take me home."
I know at least ONE of you saw Bunny coming. I'll be the first to admit I Googled "Aussie slang," found a site, and proceeded to cram in as many Aussie-isms as I could. I think they're all pretty context-explanatory, though it probably nudged a toe into parody. My bad. My apologies to genuine Aussies.
Pitch though. He is surprisingly fun to write I hope it was good for you too. Yowza. I just asked myself, "What would scare the crap out of me?" and, uh, ran with it. (Though I think a 22-year-old woman/mortal fears different things than a 277-year-old boy/winter spirit, but that's just a detail.)
Thank you for reading, and I'll see you again soon!