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Even after becoming a Guardian, Jack Frost did not typically find himself in the company of all of the previous titled Big Four. It’s not that they didn’t have fun, and he knew all about that, thank you very much, but those four were all incredibly busy and Jack…
Well, he was a bit of a free spirit.
It was a part of his center as the element of fun could not be bound by rules or outlines and Jack preferred to flit from place to place to spread fun and snow days and mischief. As he’d told them, they were all hard work and he was snowballs and fun times and even though he was now a Guardian (and that did come with heavy responsibility and one he took seriously) that didn’t mean he wasn’t still going to be himself.
Except now…
Now it was even more fun. It had started with Jamie and his friends but as Jack traveled the world he was finding that more and more kids could see him and seeing their eyes widen with sheer joy, with that wonder and awe North had talked about, made Jack feel warm in the best way possible.
Not only that, but he had real friends now. In some ways… in some ways even a family, even if Jack would die before he’d ever admit such. He hung out with Sandy on dream runs, getting better and better at interpreting the little man’s image speech and filling the silence with stories of his own and Sandy always listened with a smile and made the best expressions and asked questions at all the right times.
Jack joined Tooth on retrieval runs, passing the night away with acrobatic dances through the skies and playing with Baby Tooth and when they were all finished, before daylight broke, sometimes they’d lie atop a rooftop and gaze at the stars.
He visited Bunny in the warren and helped decorate (Bunny had been beyond impressed, even if he had been gruff in saying it and clearly embarrassed, as Jack made frost designs and patterns with the paints and dyes) and was now learning how to use a boomerang although he thought Bunny enjoyed laughing as it knocked Jack over and over in the head a bit too much).
Jack visited North most of all. What could he say, he was still a kid and he was literally in Santa’s workshop and this time the yetis didn’t throw him out. He shared ideas with North, watched them come to life under North’s hands and magic, and North had so many stories of kids — naughty and nice although it was clear which stories made Jack laugh the most — that he’d share as they ate cookies and drank hot (or cold, depending on how quickly Jack was able to drink it before his body chilled it) cocoa and played pranks on the elves.
And as special as all of those times were, there was something even more special and amazing about all of them finding time to come together.
Today was one such day.
They were all gathered in North’s workshop to watch a solar eclipse that North had been nearly giddy over as it was aligning perfectly above the pole and they’d have a crystal clear view and he had made them all special eclipse glasses so they must come.
Jack had surprisingly never seen a solar eclipse; he knew what they were but somehow he’d never wound up on location when one was occurring and he remembered once planning to see one when he’d been up in Greenland but…
But somehow he hadn’t.
He couldn’t remember entirely why.
Now though…
He was wondering if maybe…
Maybe there had been a reason for that.
Because there was a weird feeling gathering in his chest, a sort of tightness that didn’t quite hurt but it wasn’t comfortable, and no matter how tightly he gripped his mug of chilled apple cider he couldn’t seem to stop the trembles in his hands that were trying to go up his arms.
A glance around the room — a big glass-enclosed floor at the top of the workshop with an unobstructed view of the horizon where the sun still shone in its full glory although the giant count-down timer indicated in three minutes and twelve seconds the eclipse would begin — revealed that no one else seemed to be feeling the same as North laughed so loud the floor and the jingle bells on the elves shook as he threw an arm around Bunny who let out a defeated sigh and Sandy rolled silently in the air with his own laughter while Tooth was… Tooth was—
“Jack?”
Jack yelped as Tooth suddenly appeared with three of her fairies hovering next to her inches from his face and normally he was used to that as Tooth had no concept of personal space and even months later she still loved to examine his teeth, today it startled him enough that he dropped the mug, sending cider everywhere as unusually clumsy hands didn’t react fact enough to catch it.
“Ah, sorry, Tooth,” Jack sent her a tight smile as he bent down to grab the mug and freeze the fallen liquid for easier clean-up.
“Not too often I catch you off guard,” she teased while her faeries fluttered around Jack with little chirps for frozen shards of his drink to lick and he smiled, handing out pieces, that sent the faeries swooning and his smile turned a little more natural.
The tight feeling in his chest remained.
He pushed it aside as he stood up because he wasn’t going to let it ruin today.
Even though the movement made his head swim and without his staff he’d have fallen right back over.
Tooth fortunately didn’t seem to have noticed.
“Come on, come on,” she grabbed hold of his arm, giving a tug and wings beating furiously behind her as Jack didn’t budge, afraid if he moved his foot he would tip as the world seemed to be shifting, “we’re going to miss it!”
What had been in that cider?
It looked like North might need to put himself on the naughty list. Jack smirked at the thought before the weird tightness made it fall.
“Glasses!” North bellowed from across the room. “Jack! Tooth! Vat are you vaiting for?”
“Coming!” Tooth chirped and with a heavy yank she dragged Jack off his feet and he let out a “whoah!” at both the sudden flight and as his stomach gave a flip and it didn’t stop as they touched down by the others, a sort of churning and he could taste cider on the back of his tongue.
Was he going to throw up?
He’d only done that once, eating what he later could assume had been poisonous mushrooms, and while as a spirit he couldn’t die at the time he wished he could have as he’d spent two days heaving around stomach cramps curled up at the base of a tree and in so much pain with no one there to help.
He swallowed thickly, trying not to let the sudden discomfort show. He was the Guardian of fun and throwing up?
So not fun.
And it would ruin this event for everyone and that was the absolute last thing he wanted. He’d be fine.
He always was.
He numbly took the pair of glasses — goggles really — North handed him, offering a close-lipped smile as he was afraid what would happen if he opened his mouth.
“Yeh doing okay, Frostbite?” Bunny peered down at him, nose twitching and eyes narrowed with what Jack knew was not anger but concern even behind the garish orange glasses that North had taken the liberty to decorate with embossed carrots on the edges.
Jack’s stomach lurched again.
He was about to get caught.
Jack Frost did not get caught.
“Aw, Bunny,” Jack quietly thanked his lucky stars speaking did not result in vomiting, “are you… worried about me? That’s so sweet. It’s just…” he stifled a faked laugh. “Those glasses… they…” he snorted. “Well, I didn’t want to say anything but… they make you look like a raccoon.”
There was a beat.
“A what?” Bunny drew himself up to his full height. “A what?”
“Raccoon,” North filled in helpfully. He rubbed his chin as he gave Jack a wink and he gave one back, stomach still rolling but the jolt of panic disappearing with North’s interference. “Hmm. I agree with Jack. Zhey do make you look like raccoon. I vonder who might have been responsible?”
“Listen here, mate,” Bunny leaned forward, voice low, poking North in the chest with his boomerang. “I’m a bunny.”
“So you say,” Jack grinned, carefully stepping in line with North, staff firmly planted on the ground to keep his balance.
“Why you—”
A burst of dream sand appeared between them and Sandy rode it, arms forming a “T” and a sand-whistle silently blowing while figures too fast for Jack to follow and made his head swim even worse appeared above his head.
“Sandy is right,” North said with a nod. “Zhere is no need to argue. Ve all know truth.” His eyes crinkled. “Bunny is kangaroo.”
Bunny’s roar of exaggerated rage was drowned out only by North’s laughter and Sandy facepalmed even as he sped out of the way to avoid Bunny’s lunge.
Jack stepped aside to avoid them and even that small step made him waver, vision spinning in a circle, and he clung to his staff to remain upright.
No one noticed; Tooth flitting above the two tumbling combatants and Sandy keeping them contained with walls of sand while elves ran underfoot.
Jack closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, willing his stomach to settle, the dizziness to disappear and the tight feeling growing in his chest to loosen.
Tooth’s sharp gasp had his eyes flying open but she wasn’t looking at him.
She was looking at the sky.
“It’s starting!”
That weird shudder thing moved through Jack’s hands at her announcement, rolling through him and shuddering down his spine.
It hurt.
“Glasses!” North shouted. “Everyone, glasses now!”
Jack fumbled his on, just in time as North swooped over, lifting Jack easily under one arm to drag him to the very center of the window and plop him in front of him, Jack offering a token protest of “Hey!” even though he tried not to slump too gratefully against North’s large stomach.
“Look, look!” North’s belly jiggled with his excitement and as awful as Jack was starting to feel his smile was genuine.
North truly was the Guardian of wonder and awe.
Jack turned his attention to the sun, everyone else’s focused on it too as the moon slowly began to eclipse the sun.
“Heh,” Bunny snorted. “Looks like some chompers got a hold of the sun and took a bite right out of it.”
It looked like that human video game, Pac-Man, Jack wanted to say, wanted to mime the “wakka wakka wakka” sound he found so amusing.
But he kept his lips sealed, a strangely acidic taste that was definitely not cider now on his tongue, and he didn’t dare let it out.
He just had to get through this solar eclipse. Then he could make his escape, hunker down, and figure out whatever was going on without alarming everyone else.
It’s not like he could die from whatever this was, right?
The thought wasn’t very comforting.
Jack forced himself to focus back on the sun, the moon now over halfway across it.
Looking at it made his head ache.
Why though? He was wearing the glasses same as everyone else.
That weird shudder came back, this time accompanied by something else.
It tingled on his skin.
It hurt.
Jack’s eyes widened as his body did it again.
It wasn’t a shudder.
It was a shiver. He’d seen humans make them for centuries.
But…
But humans shivered when they were cold.
And he…
He couldn’t...
His skin was prickling, his head pounded, and his breath was starting to come in small, short pants as though he couldn’t get enough of it.
His sun blurred in front of him, nearly entirely eclipsed now.
He felt faint.
“Ten seconds!” Tooth shouted from the right.
Jack lost his grip on his staff as another shiver ripped through him and he stumbled slightly forward after it, fingertips brushing wood.
Another hand, large and tattooed, shot out and caught it just before it could fall before coming back for the arm and staff to press against Jack’s front to keep him from tumbling after it.
He was so dizzy.
He didn’t…
What was…
“Jack?” North’s breath brushed his ear, not calling attention to them. “Vat is wrong?”
Jack wasn’t sure if he gave a shake of his head or if his body did.
He couldn’t seem to control it.
“I…”
That terrible taste was crawling up his throat now.
The tightness in his chest was squeezing the air out of his lungs.
“Five!”
He couldn’t…
He couldn’t breathe.
“ Four!”
He was going to…
He slumped more against North’s arm.
“Three!”
He lifted his eyes towards the sun.
The shiver rattled through him.
It didn’t return his air.
“Two!”
He was…
He was…
He was scared.
“One!”
And a sensation like none he had ever experienced slammed into Jack as the moon took over the sun.
Coldness.
Stabbing, piercing, nearly burning with intensity cold in a way he had only ever felt the burn of fire and heat but not like this, never like this, it was wrong, it hurt, it hurt it hurt it—
A hand slammed against his back.
And Jack vomited.
It burned too, made his throat ache and eyes water but there was air and he took in choked gasps of it, shuddering and trembling and shivering and the hand was there again, this rubbing his back with an indistinguible murmur over the roaring in Jack’s ears.
He gave up all pretense of trying to pretend he was fine, continuing to shake and slump over the large arm, vaguely aware he was on the ground now, kneeling, and North’s other hand continued to rub his back, and there were other voices now, all overlapping one another and they made the dizziness worse and he heaved again, feeling something dripping down his cheeks
“Easy Jack, easy,” North’s words were a gentle rumble at his back. “Breathe now, yes. Very good.”
That was all Jack seemed capable of doing and he wasn’t even doing it well, each inhale feeling like ice was stabbing his lungs and the tightness around his heart had yet to let go.
There was the soft flutter of wings and then a small hand was seeking out his forehead beneath his bangs.
Jack wanted to tell her, recognizing the gesture and the tight feeling increased and his eyes stung and he didn't even know why, that checking him for a fever was silly because he couldn’t—
“He’s burning up.” Tooth’s voice wavered. “Guys, he’s burning up.”
“That’s impossible,” Bunny answered and Jack felt a furry paw press on his cheek and he couldn’t even be embarrassed at the sudden attention, “Frostbite can’t— blimey! He’s hot!”
Jack shook his head very slightly at that.
No.
He wasn’t hot.
He was…
He was…
He didn’t know how but… but this feeling…
Somehow…
Somehow he was...
“Jack?” North whispered.
“I’m…” his voice was a rasp. “I’m c-cold.”
There was a pause.
And then Jack gasped as he was scooped into North’s large arms and cradled to his chest and it was warm and Jack pressed against it, uncaring of what they thought after he’d tried so so hard to show them that while he was young he wasn’t a child, and for some reason that drew a curse on North’s end.
Jack gave a start at that and felt his cheeks flame — and they were, he could feel them somehow red even though he was so cold — and he’d done something wrong, he shouldn’t have—
“No, no, easy Jack,” North gave him a small squeeze. “It is all right. Hold on now. Just for minute.”
They were walking quickly, so fast North was making a breeze and Jack hid his face, tried to hide the whimper the action caused and it made North go even faster.
There was a flurry of heavy footsteps — yetis? — and the loud bang of a door and a few steps later Jack found himself being lowered from North’s arms onto something soft.
A crack of his eyes revealed it to be a bed.
North’s bed.
“Ah ah,” North scolded, a large hand pushing him back down as Jack went to sit up. “Lie still, Jack.”
Tooth’s hands swam into his vision and she quietly set, “Here, let me get those,” and there was a tug from behind his ears as she pulled the eclipse glasses free.
And without them and everyone else having removed theirs as well there was no longer any barrier over anyone’s faces.
And they…
They all looked scared.
Jack had made them all scared.
That was the last thing he’d wanted to do.
There was a yeti growl from the door and Sandy departed in a flicker of gold sand to return in a blink, a thermometer in his hand and a very determined set to his eyes.
“Uh, Sandy,” North said as the sandman disappeared from Jack’s view. “Vhere are you—? Oh! No!” and Jack felt a tug on his waistband. “Mouth, Sandy, mouth! Jack, open please.”
Jack felt his cheeks heat even more and apparently it was evident as Tooth sucked in a harsh gasp and Bunny quietly murmured, “what the hell?” but he did as ordered and the device clacked against his teeth before North instructed him to put it under his tongue.
Silence pressed in.
It was broken thirty seconds later by three sharp beeps and Sandy pulled the thermometer free.
Jack saw the numbers flash above Sandy’s head.
One hundred and two point six.
He’d tested a temperature once, for fun, to see where he compared to a human.
He clocked in at a high of thirty-six degrees.
The shiver accompanied with fear came back.
What was…
What was wrong with him?
“Jack,” Tooth hovered above him, arms tucked up beneath her arms, “what’s… what’s going on? Has this happened… happened before?”
Her voice caught on the last word and Jack felt a start, saw there wasn’t only fear on her face, etched between everyone's eyes.
There was guilt.
That in his three hundred years alone, because not once had they ever reached out to him, and during that time had he…
Had he suffered like this?
Jack gave a small shake of his head.
He didn’t hold onto negative feelings like that, didn’t want them to either. The past was the past.
And this had honestly never happened before.
He’d never felt like—
His eyes widened as his stomach groaned and his throat stung and he knew what was about to happen.
Bunny’s paws were rolling him over by his shoulders and Sandy had a bowl made of dream sand at the side of the bed and Jack heaved up whatever remained in his stomach, every choked gasp burning his throat but it was too hot to be of comfort to how cold he was.
When he finally finished the scene was blurred with tears and he could feel them dripping down his cheeks and his nose was leaking too.
A wet cloth — cold, it was too cold — brushed against his lips and chin and Jack shivered, trying to pull away and realizing too late the whine echoing inside his head was coming out of his mouth. There was a murmured apology and he felt hands — Tooth’s — stroke through his hair, brushing somehow sweaty bangs backwards.
Jack shivered and closed his eyes, trying to focus on just that strangely comforting sensation.
He wondered if…
If his mom had ever…?
“—need to cool him down before his temperature gets higher,” came Tooth’s murmur, her fingers continuing to stroke his hair.
“Drop him in the snow?” he heard Bunny suggest and where before the suggestion might have been said with a smirk there was no humor in it now.
“That is too much,” North said. “His body is like human’s now. Ve must be careful.”
“But why?” Bunny demanded. “What’s happening to ‘im?”
“I may have idea,” North’s voice was hard.
Jack shivered again.
He’d only heard North like that when Pitch had been present.
This wasn’t…
This wasn’t Pitch’s doing somehow, was it?
“Jack,” North’s beard tickled his cheek. “All vill be vell. Rest now. I vill be back soon. Tooth, you are in charge. And no dumping him in snow.”
A heavy hand landed on Jack’s brow; warm and comforting. “You vill be all right, Jack,” North promised quietly. “Listen to Tooth. Alright?”
Jack managed a nod.
Somehow, even though nothing had changed…
The fear was trickling away.
The other Guardians, his friends, they were going to help him.
“Jack,” Tooth brushed her hand down his cheek. “We’ll take care of you.”
He nodded again.
“Sandy,” her voice was so soft. “Can you…?”
Jack’s eyes fluttered open at that, at the realization before golden droplets of sand circled above his head.
“Shh, Jack,” Tooth murmured. “It will be all right.”
Her face was the last thing he saw before dreams whisked him away.
xxx
Jack woke several times, each time feeling somehow worse.
He was dizzy even though he was lying down, breathing hurt and he couldn’t get enough air when he did manage a wheezing breath.
Ice clawed at his insides and was outside too as hands — small petite ones, furry paws, even tinier hot ones and then big, heavy ones — dragged cold, wet cloths against hot skin, across his brow.
At some point Jack realized they’d removed his hoodie and he’d started crying because he was so cold and a small, furry body — Bunny?— had curled up under one of his arms and he’d dug his fingers into the soft fur and held on tight.
They made him drink water — and every sip had felt like he was drowning, ice puncturing his lungs — but he’d choked it down because he knew, no matter how hazy and confusing everything became, that they were trying to help him.
It was a mantra that he clung to, as fingers carded through his hair, as his stomach continued to cramp and heave even though he had nothing left to expel, as murmurs and words he couldn’t quite catch but they were so so kind and gentle, followed him back to the solace he found in dreams he could never remember but he knew they were nice.
“Just little longer, Jack,” came a surprisingly clear sentence, North’s hand a comforting weight on his head. “Just…” a heavy swallow.
North sounded like…
Like he was about to cry.
“Just little longer.”
Jack fell back asleep before he could think on it any longer.
xxx
When Jack next woke it was with a strange sense of clarity, of a heightened sense of touch and sight.
He was lying in a bed — North’s, he faintly recalled — with a thin sheet covered in reindeers draped over him where he realized he was completely bare from the waist up.
He didn’t feel cold.
He didn’t feel hot.
He felt…
His lips quirked up.
Goldilocks would be proud. He felt just right.
He amended that as his gaze wandered around the room.
He was better than all right.
Tooth was curled up at the foot of North’s large bed and one of her hands was wrapped around Jack’s ankle, holding it to her face like one would a teddy bear.
Or…
Or like Jack vaguely recalled holding a bunny rabbit.
Bunny was normal sized though, sitting in a chair right by Jack’s head, his own head drooped on his chest while a swirl of golden sand circled his head.
Not carrots though.
Snowflakes.
Jack’s cheeks didn’t darken but he could feel the intent.
They tried harder as he realized Tooth’s were the same and a glance at Sandy, sitting in a meditative pose on his cloud, showed a small, knowing smile as his eyes met Jack’s, a snowflake flickering into the air above his own head followed by a heart.
Jack’s lips pulled into a smile. “Thanks, Sandy,” he whispered, throat raw and scratchy but the words didn’t hurt.
Sandy inclined his head.
And it directed Jack to the last person in the room; North, sitting on the other side of the bed.
“Good morning, Jack,” he said quietly and while his eyes were sparkling there was a searching quality in them as Jack met his gaze. “You are feeling better?”
Jack nodded, slowly sitting up and letting the blanket fall away.
There was no shiver of cold at the loss of the material.
“Yes,” he answered, completely honestly, and North saw it too as he smiled wide beneath his beard.
“Good. Because I have vaited two days to do zhis…”
And Jack found himself being swept up into a tight hug, face pressed into North’s beard and even then he couldn’t pull away, his own arms rising up to return the hug.
If his eyes stung he wiped them on the scratchy beard before they could be noticed.
North pulled back a moment later, hands landing on Jack’s shoulders and squeezing them. “No more solar eclipses for you.”
Jack blinked.
What?
The solar eclipse had…?
Had caused all of that?
Why?
“I spoke vith Manny,” North said, his voice quiet but there was a hardness to it. “He told me vhat happened. He told me vhy.”
North relayed what he had gathered from the Moon in bits and pieces: Jack’s powers had come from the Moon because it was the Moon who had given him life after he had died. The others had only been chosen by the Moon; their powers already their own. And so… Jack’s life force was tied to the Moon.
And during a solar eclipse…
The Moon was engulfed in the full presence of the sun, bearing its heat and weight as it blocked out the sun’s rays.
And so Jack…
Jack had suffered for it.
Manny had steered Jack away from other eclipses, North quietly explained. Manny knew that if Jack encountered one and there was no one there to care for him…
He would die.
Again.
Jack had shivered at the thought, at realizing he wasn’t as invincible as he’d always believed.
But this time, North had continued, Manny had not done so. Because this time… this time Jack was not alone.
North’s voice had hardened again then, the tattoos popping on his knuckles as his hands clenched into fists, that he had told Manny that it was still not right. That Jack had been hurt and he… North’s eyes had met his, the next part a whisper on his lips. Jack had been scared. All of them had been scared.
Manny had only responded with that Jack had not been alone and that this…
This had been needed.
“I may have zhen,” North’s cheeks pinkened, “closed vindow on Manny. I vas… I am … so… so…”
“Don’t be angry,” the words came out more childish than Jack meant them too and his eyes widened in tandem with North’s.
“I, I mean,” he swallowed. “The Moon… the Moon protected me all this time. He made sure that when I did find out… that I wouldn’t…”
He couldn’t say the actual word.
He’d just found out a few months ago he’d died once. He’d just almost died again. He’d really prefer not to say it aloud.
“That you were here,” Jack barely whispered it, eyes averted. “And he knew that… that you would take care of me.”
A quiet pause followed.
And then Jack found himself being swept up once more into North’s arms, a kiss planted atop his head that held none of the theatrics of the double cheek kiss North tended to do.
Just a tenderness.
“You are very vise, Jack Frost,” North whispered.
Jack let the moment sit, soaking in the praise, the kindness, and trying to fight back the sudden cropping of tears.
But…
He was still the Guardian of fun.
And it was time to bring a little of that back after all the worry he had caused.
“So,” Jack said slowly, “I know I was a bit out of it, but I do faintly remember hugging a very soft, very cuddly bunny…”
North’s chortle shook them both.
Lips and a beard brushed his ears.
“I have pictures.”
Jack’s face lit up.
North let out a full belly laugh and Jack found himself joining in, head thrown back and joy so loud it woke up the rest of the room, confusion giving way to pure happiness.
And as Jack looked around the room, as paws and hands ruffled his hair and pulled him into hugs, he changed his mind once again.
Things were not just better than all right.
They were the absolute best.
And he had never been happier.