Dreams all around
It wasn't long before Jack was opening the door to a friendly and familiar face.
"Well hello, long time no see." She said with a smile.
"Hey, come on in!" He stepped aside and Mrs. Bennett stepped in with someone Jack swore he knew right behind her.
"Hi Jack!" The boy greeted excitedly. Jack smiled, loving his enthusiasm but something seemed odd. Had she told the boy about him?
"Hi, you must be Jamie." Jack greeted. There was something in the boy's eyes when he said that, they fell, almost like he was expecting something he didn't get.
"Jack? Don't you remember? You...you grew up!" Jamie looked him over in astonishment.
"Jamie..." His mom drew his name out. "What did we say? This isn't the same Jack." She chastised lightly, almost laughing as she did so. She gave Jack an apologetic look which he met with a smile.
"But...but he, you look JUST like him! That's Jack Frost!" Jamie insisted. Jack got a mental image of a Shepard's crook and a blizzard, Jamie's face and someone who reminded him a whole lot of Sandy, but it was gone as soon as it got there and it left him looking in awe at the little boy who was returning the look hopefully.
"Well, who was Jack Frost?" Jack asked, kneeling to be at Jamie's height, settling on the floor beside him because Jack was actually fairly tall.
"He had white hair and blue eyes, and he always wore a dark blue hoodie. He was a guardian and we would have snowball fights all the time after I met him." Jamie explained. Jack couldn't help his smile.
"That sounds like fun." Jack agreed, something sounded familiar about that scenario but he couldn't put his finger on it. The last name too, it fit better somehow. Jackson Overland Frost...he liked it much better than Jackson Overland Bunnymund. It flowed better. He didn't get to dwell on the idea long though, Jamie pulled him back to reality before he had enough time to realize how much better it fit.
"It was, but if you don't remember then you really must not be him." Jamie looked really disappointed and Jack couldn't stand it. He glanced up at his mom when he tried to distract him, just to be sure he wasn't crossing a line but her smile said she appreciated his understanding.
"Hey, that's alright, he's out there somewhere. It's summer here so you wouldn't be seeing him around yet, right?" He nodded. "Well, why don't you tell us about him and all his friends?" Jack prompted, "I'll be you're a great storyteller." Jamie's eyes lit up.
"Well, not as good as he was, but sure." All Jack's younger siblings who had been watching with baited breath for this to play out all gathered around with various appreciative calls and cheers. Jamie and his mom settled down on the couch and the rest of them all sat in chairs and on the floor waiting.
"Where do I start?" He asked, looking around uncertainly.
"Well, tell us about Jack Frost." His mom prompted. It was clear to Jack that she had heard all these stories before and loved her son's creativity.
"Okay!" He sat up and he recounted the entire story about how he had met Jack, and how the guardians had landed in his bedroom and later how Jack had made it snow, in his room! He talked about each guardian in turn, describing them as best he knew how. He knew something was up immediately when he took a closer look at the five.
"What did they look like?" Jack asked.
"Well, Jack looked like...well you. If you were about twelve or fourteen." Jamie insisted, "only his hair was actually white and yours is blonde." He provided. "Sandman looked a whole lot like Sandy does, only he was made of golden sand! And Santa was called North and he was big and fearce, but...kinda looked a lot like nick only he was, not old just...well his beard and hair were white. Then there was Tooth, she was a human-sized fary that looked a lot like a humming bird and she was blue and green and gold and purple! Then there was the Easter Bunny and he was huge and cool and he had these awesome boomerangs and he was probably six feet tall!" He provided excitedly.
Nick, Anna and Sandy were enthralled and Jack was loving his enthusiasm but Aster was sitting there with a polite but skeptical look on his face. Arms crossed, legs under him he was listening intently and trying to decide if the kid really believed what he said or if he was really telling an amazing story.
They settled on having dinner upstairs and by the end of the night when they ventured back downstairs they were all asking about the guardians. Jack couldn't imagine how he hadn't thought about these stories before but he was instantly glad that he hadn't because Jamie's version was so much better than anything he would have dreamed up. As he was putting them to bed he told them to believe, that maybe the Sandman would visit them.
Once they were asleep he settled down on the couch and called about their parent's house, it was only nine and he had gotten midnight calls from her before.
"Hello?" The cheery but smoke-riddled voice of his friendly neighborhood real-estate agent answered on the first ring.
"Hey, this is Jackson. I was wondering how things were going, you told me to check up in a few days." He asked, holding his breath.
"Oh, I meant to call you, it's sold! You'll be getting that check in the mail soon." She informed and he had to seriously use every single drop of his self-control to avoid jumping up and cheering. Someone had bought that crappy house!
"Thank you very much!" He said, not catching her goodbye or that she had hung up. She had done it, she had sold that old rotted out thing! He leaned back on the sofa in elated exhaustion.
Sandy, having just realized Jack wasn't in their room, wandered out to look for him. He almost didn't realize he was there for a moment until he climbed up on the sofa and snuggled into his side.
"Hey Sandy, what're you doin' outta bed buddy?" He asked, ruffling his baby brother's blonde mop. He looked up at him and tugged on his shirt, pointing in the direction of their room. Jack chuckled.
"I had to make a call buddy." He informed the sleepy toddler. He tugged again and held his arms out in the universal sign for 'pick me up!'. Jack chuckled again.
"Alright, alright." He conceded as he picked him up. "You know if you don't go to sleep the Sandman can't give you nice dreams." He informed semi-warningly. Sandy nodded and grinned. Jack guessed that meant he knew. He pointed at Jack with a nod.
"Oh, you mean I have to go to sleep too or he won't come?" he asked. Sandy nodded resolutely and Jack nodded.
"You know you're right bud, alright come on." He tucked the toddler back into his bed. "G'night buddy." Sandy smiled at him and squeezed his pillow in a hug. Jack let out a massive breath before he curled up in his own bed by the window.
It wasn't five minutes later when something shattered in the living room.
Jack lept up instantly, biting his lip so as not to curse. Sandy was already out and not budging but Anna was wide awake and scared silly. Her big blue eyes searched for Jack, not adjusted to the dark yet and Jack found her quickly.
"Shh, come here, it's alright." he whispered as he picked her up, easily holding her on one arm while he gathered Sandy up in the other. The room Aster shared with Nick was at the end of the hall so he pulled them in there and locked the door. Both boys were wide awake and trying their best to be all manly but Jack could see the little seven year old Nicky on the verge of tears. Aster was much more reserved, but his eyes were wide.
"Hey, it's alright, come here." He sat down on Aster's bed and Nick crawled over behind him. Anna was squeezing his waist and Sandy was now up and burying his face in his shoulder. He knew he wasn't much good with them all over him though, so he gently de-tangled himself.
"Jackie? What're you doin'?" Anna whined.
"Shh, it's okay, I'm gonna go check it out just stay here okay? I'll be right back." He assured her. She huddled into Aster, in fact all of them did and Jack handed him an old baseball bat. He knew it wouldn't do much and he was more likely to smack himself in the face, but it made him feel better and that was all Jack was gunning for at the moment.
"Alright Aster, stay with them, okay?" Aster nodded. Jack gave his hair a ruffle before making his way out the door, shutting it behind him.
When he made it to the living room the glass was broken but nothing was stolen and it looked like the bandit had smacked himself over the head with the cutting board and run. He tilted his head and tried to suppress the sarcastic comments that threatened to bubble up out of his mouth. After shutting the window, covering it with the shutters and doing a thorough check up and down on the place he swept up the glass and made his way back to the others.
"Hey guys, it's okay, they're gone." He assured.
"What happened?" Nick asked.
"I don't know, but they didn't take anything and they're gone so why look a gift horse in the mouth?" He chuckled with a grin, trying his best to lighten the mood as he sat back down in the middle of them. He gave the top of Anna's head a little kiss to calm her down and encouraged Sandy to snuggle back in under his arm. "We're alright, it's all good." he assured.
"What if they come back?" Aster asked, his eyes flitting all over the room at every slight change in light and movement. Jack gave his shoulder a pat.
"I'll stay in the living room, okay? They won't come back but if they do I'll be right there waiting for 'em. Okay?" he reasoned. Aster relaxed, as did the others and he mentally sighed. This was gonna be a looooooooong week.
He wasn't too keen with leaving anyone in his new home after this, and now to top it off he had to get the window replaced because he didn't figure he'd be lucky enough that insurance or the landlord would cover any of it. He settled down with all his blankets and pillows on the, thankfully, comfortable couch. As he was drifting off he noted the slight shadow cast over the windows but really didn't think much of it.
About an hour later he heard a high-pitched, obviously terrified screech from his room.
"Anna?!" He bolted through the door to find the poor thing sitting straight up, back against the wall, terrified of something she had seen, probably in a dream.
"Anna? What is it sweetie? What's wrong?" Jack asked halfway panicked but trying to speak softly for her sake.
"Jack?" She blinked up at him as if just now realizing where she was.
"Yeah I'm right here, what's wrong?" He asked as he pulled her into a hug. Sandy was sitting up wide-eyed and looking over at them in startled question.
"I-I h-h-had a bad...dream." Anna was full-on snot-crying now and Jack was doing his best to calm her when Nick and Aster finally got up the courage to come investigate.
"What's wrong?" Aster poked his head in.
"Anna had a nightmare, it's okay sweetie, it's alright. It was just a bad dream it can't hurt you." Jack assured as he rocked the trembling mess that was his little sister.
"Hey, it's alright buddy." Aster noted Sandy's tension and Jack booted himself for not immediately checking to see if he was alright, the kid couldn't talk it was up to him dangit. Aster picked the little boy up, encouraging him to snuggle into him. "It's okay, sissy just had a bad dream, that's all. We're safe." he practically cooed, although half-asleep, to the boy until he fell asleep again.
Nick, upon seeing that everyone was alright, wandered back to bed.
"Night Nicky." Jack said, although he debated if he had even heard him, poor guy was still sleepin' on his feet.
"Jackie..." Anna whined, obviously not wanting him to leave. He hugged her a bit tighter and kissed the top of her head.
"It's alright Annie, I'm not leaving, shh." he soothed the toddler who was still worked up. It took the better part of a half hour but he finally got her to relax and semi-close her eyes.
No sooner than they drifted back off he heard a faint noise like a whimper in the other room and Aster sent Jack the 'I'm on it' look. He came back with a sniffling Nick and curled up on Sandy's bed with the two.
"Nightmare?" Jack asked. Aster nodded.
"I don't even know how, it couldn't have been more than a minute, maybe he was just sleep-walkin' before?" He ventured at a whisper. Jack shrugged.
"Could've been, wouldn't put it past him." Jack said around a yawn. "Alright, no more icky dreams, come on. Nap time." Jack said as he picked Anna up, taking the terrified little girl with her to grab all his pillows and blankets, adding them to the pile on her bed. "Let's just sleep here." He suggested, abandoning all thoughts of sleeping soundly through the night. If nothing else he'd just take a quick nap before work.
"Good idea." Aster nodded. Jack had left the door open and the hall light, which was dim, on. They managed to all fall asleep without any more problems.
Pitch watched this whole thing play out but couldn't let himself watch the guy rob them. He had caused the cutting board to break the idiot's nose and run him off. Watching Jack handle four very terrified kids was...surprising. Pitch pondered how he managed to calm them, never losing his temper.
After those nightmares...
Pitch had a sense, he could see what the person was dreaming about if it wasn't pleasant and from what he saw of Anna and Nick's dreams they had been...unplanned. The single, solitary time Jack hadn't been able to keep them away from their parents when they had snapped was ingrained in the little seven year old's minds. It was rather horrifying, even to Pitch. Even he couldn't understand why a parent would say what they had, do what they had done.
"Maybe they've got enough to be afraid of." He realized in shock. "Maybe..." He wouldn't say it, he refused, but something about them made his parental instincts, long dead, reawaken. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of said feelings but they clung to him like a mist. "What are you up to this time, old friend?" Pitch mused softly and much friendlier than Mani had heard him speak in a long time and he knew his plan was working.
A horrible mistake was being unmade.
As Pitch watched the children finally sleep soundly a silver light washed over him that he didn't see, but caused Mani to sigh in relief. It had begun, after centuries of effort it was finally happening. He smiled down at his son, not knowing what would unfold, only that there was hope.
Well happy Monday night (or by the time I run this through and it actually posts, Tuesday morning) everyone! Thankfully I was working on this today when I was denied my chance to be a good little musician because all the practice rooms were full and frankly I was hungry. I'd like to say thank you to my first review on this story, thank you very, very much! As always please feel free to comment and let me know what's good/bad, and thank you for reading, you are wonderful people! :)