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ROTG Hope Week

Happy Easter, everybody! This was written for Hope Week, in response to these darker days we’re going through. Who can’t use a little extra hope?

Day 1: Hope Wordcount: 3,305 Tw: Coronavirus, Covid 19 Pairings: Jack/Bunnymund

Kudos to Chaos Incarnate for giving me the idea for the title. ;)

Can I Offer You A Nice Egg In These Trying Times?

"Whaddya mean, Easter's cancelled?"

Bunnymund's voice rang through the Warren, scattering the herds of unpainted eggs at his feet. Jack, however, remained unmoved. He crouched atop his staff, toes curling into the wood as he stared down at the Easter Bunny before him.

"Hey, it's not my fault," he raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just letting you know. This Coronavirus is shaping up to be some pretty nasty stuff."

"The—what virus?"

Jack narrowed his eyes at Bunny.

"Coronavirus. Covid-19." He said. "You have been keeping up on the news, haven't you?"

#ROTG #Rise of the Guardians #ROTG Hope Week #Hope Week #Jackrabbit #Jackrabbit Week #sorry for the length #fanfic #fanfiction #writing

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

New story, sorry it’s been so long since I last posted anything.

#Kayasurin #JackRabbit #Rise of the Guardians #this was supposed to be #Jackrabbit week #I'm a little late #sorry about that

The unhatched egg

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad (p. 198-199).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis * Aster did not like to fly. As he double checked the harness that strapped him into the cramped seat of the gumpack sized plane he was reminded exactly why. The plane bucked and shuddered against an unseen enemy and beyond the glass pane was only eternal darkness. A gripping plummeting feeling in his stomach that could have been fear or motion sickness had him swallowing thickly and fighting against the urge to shut his eyes. “Sorry there’s no leg room.” The voice of his pilot did not come from an intercom overhead but from directly beside him loud enough to be heard over the noise of the plane. “No worries mate,” Aster assured him around the choking lump in his throat, though his long legs were already protesting it was hardly his most prominent discomfort. “Yer saving me from having ta wait out the storm and hours of grief from me mates if I’m late.” “My pleasure. I was heading out and I had the seat, lucky I did too, the last trip before a storm tends to be a big load.” The rattle of cargo behind them backed up his statement well enough. If the Bearhawk hadn’t been a four seater it was likely Aster wouldn’t have had even this chance to reach North’s. “You ah, you fly often Mr. Frost?” “Just Jack is fine, and since I was old enough.” His pilot flashed him a grin as white as his hair at the obvious anxiety in Aster’s voice. He knew he didn’t look much older than a college student. “I know what I’m doing, worry not. I’ll get you there in one piece.” The nausea begged to differ, if the constant rocking didn’t let up soon he was going to scatter pieces of his digestive system all over the cockpit. It didn’t help that outside the winter sky was black as death. A half hour ago they had passed over water and he had caught sight of the midday sun barely peeking over the horizon before they had disappeared into the arctic winter’s night once more. In a few days even that much sun wouldn’t be able to creep over the land. The plane banked to the right and the thought of some invisible mountain lurking ahead sent his stomach lurching. "Oh stewth," The plane shuddered again and Aster swallowed both bile and pride and closed his eyes, imagining green and warmth and not the thought of falling who knew how far into the cold and dark. "Relax." His mentally unstable pilot knocked their knees together teasingly. "You're going to give yourself a panic attack worrying over nothing." "All I can see is nothing." Aster shot back. "Stop thinking about it." Jack’s voice was still steady and confident in spite of flying blind. "Talk to me, get your mind elsewhere. Tell me something about yourself, what do you do for a living?” “Paint, mostly.” Another shudder and he was digging his fingers into his knees but he took a deep breath and concentrated on the conversation. “I live off the land, grow things, farm and such, hunt.” “That's one way to not be a starving artist.” “Too many rabbits in OZ to starve.” If they had been driving a car Aster imagined they'd have screeched to a halt, as it was Jack pinned him with a look as wide and blue as the afternoon sky should have been in any sane part of the world but the arctic. “You hunt rabbits?!” his shout was high pitched and horrified. “I’m a greenie mate, but rabbits are invasive down under.” Aster defended. “Yeah but, can't you like catch them without killing them or something?” Jack argued. “There's no way there are THAT many rabbits in Australia, isn't it like a death trap?” “You live in Alaska.” Aster pointed out, “You gonna spit the dummy over hunting here? It's not like there's a Garden of Eden out in the never never. People have’ta eat.” Jack's face got that tight constipated look of a person who didn't want to admit the other person in an argument had a point. “Well I don't think I can kill a bunny, even hungry.” “You garden enough, you learn ta hate the little buggers, even if you don't eat them.” Jack's pout only got more severe. “You know what? I’m calling you Bunny now.” “Why the Hell would you?” “To guilt you obviously. To remind you of those poor defenseless bunnies you murder every time you hear it, and me,” Jack pointed to himself with one hand, “you'll remember my disappointed face.” “We're never gonna meet again once we land.” Aster reminded him, wondering how ‘defenseless’ Jack would find a bunny who's kicking and biting in his hands. “You'd be surprised how annoying I can be in a short amount of time Bunny." “Somehow I don't think I would.” against his will he found the corners of his mouth tugging up. “Is that an insult? Are you insulting me Bun? I am offended.” “Yer serious about this Bunny thing ain't ya?” “I'm always serious about being annoying.” Jack confided with a smirking nod to himself. “It's one of my finest skills.” “Aside from flying I hope?” “Flying’s not a skill,” Jack informed him fiendishly, “it's my god given talent.” “That's a statement ya might want t’make before you bring a bloke up a thousand feet.” Jack let out a long trickling stream of laughter too light and free to match his deep voice. It was a laugh that had likely never been stifled. “What made you want t’be a pilot?” “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you, cottontail?” Jack teased. “I already know everything about m’self.” Aster answered with his own grin. Jack’s easy laugh was infectious, and he felt himself relaxing. “When I was a kid, about 14, I missed the tour bus back to my town before a big storm. I was pretty upset about having to spend the last few days of my vacation waiting out the storm instead of with my family. Then a bush pilot offered me a lift. He had a few drops to make, and I was happy to help if it meant I got back home in time.” Jack's smile as he looked out the windshield spoke of the fond memories he saw in the darkness ahead. “I loved it, though I was no doubt annoying as fuck with all my questions and badgering he never got angry with me or irritable. I had this image in my head of racing against the storm, flying over Alaska with mountains and snow and forests, you can imagine the impression it left on a teenager.” Aster could imagine it well. A sullen kid rescued from boredom and disappointment and taken on a daring adventure over beautiful wilderness, racing the clock. How it must have thrilled him. “I got my taste of flight that day, and I couldn't stand to be on the ground after that. I needed wings.” “Was it hard to do?” “In Alaska? Never.” “Dangerous though, ever crash?” “Ah ah, you have reached your skip limit.” Jack announced. “Now it's time to talk about, guess who? Yourself.” Aster scowled, but it was half hearted. "M'from Australia, came up to visit my mates." "You told me that much when we met." Jack's blue eyes were on him for an instant, amusement making them scrunch at the corners. "Do you like it there?" "Can't imagine living anyplace else." "Good. It's good to have a home you love." "What about yerself?" Something about that comment felt wrong. "I used to, but since I lost my family it's pretty much just been me and the plane.” Ah, so there it was. "No place to overwinter?" "I have a few places, but nothing that's really a 'home'." “Sounds lonely.” Aster regretted the words as soon as they were said, but he couldn’t bring himself to backtrack. Instead he simply said what he felt, “sound’s like me, when I was young.” “Were you lonely?” Jack’s question was lower, barely audible over the noise of the cockpit. “More than I can explain.” It still hurt to think of it, those years passing by in a haze of terrible isolation. “For so long I forgot what not being alone felt like.” “You forget you’re even alone.” Jack’s voice was a whisper, it shouldn’t have been heard over the noise of the plane at all, and yet it resonated in Aster’s ears with an unearthly clarity. “You start to think you like it better that way.” “Yeah, that's it.” Aster breathed, “That's exactly it.” They lapsed into silence, the noise of the plane becoming a physical blanket of comfort around them as the topic settled and an obvious wound was allowed to fade to a dull ache again. Then suddenly Jack grinned. “Check your pieces cottontail,” he said, nudging Aster with an elbow, “We’re about to land.” Through the darkness a light shimmered into view, wavering like a mirage. A few more minutes and Aster realized what he was seeing was the outline of towering hills of ice surrounding North’s home, and the glow was the light pollution just beyond the obstruction. The plane descended and he was surprised his stomach didn't pitch, somehow through the conversation his anxiety had faded and his motion sickness had calmed to a faint cramping in the gut. North's runway was hardly more than a few thousand foot road of ice but it was enough for a four seater bush plane to touch down. After so long of staring at nothing but black the lights from the town were brilliant and fantastical. A low whistle had him looking back to Jack. “Now this, this is pretty. You don’t expect to see this kind of thing this far out from the cities.” “It’s North’s pride and joy.” He wondered what it looked like, so someone so used to the Alaskan wilderness, to see the towering buildings and glittering lights. He wondered if Jack had ever been to a big city, or if his travels only brought him from the coast to the backwoods towns and back again. “Ye ah, ye wanna come in, have a drink?” He asked, his nerves tiptoeing in new directions now that he was back on thrice blessed Earth. “North would be happy to have ya.” “Wish I could.” Jack sighed, “But I still have two stops to make before the storm hits, and I want to be someplace safe myself.” “One of yer ‘not homes’?” “Yeah.” There was a wistfulness in his eyes as he looked at Aster, and he didn’t imagine the longing to accept the invitation in them. Jack would join him if he could, but circumstances what they were… “You failed.” Aster said suddenly, and Jack jerked back. “What?” “You weren’t nearly as annoying as ye could have been.” Jack’s sour candy pout returned and Aster found himself resisting the urge to lean over and take a bite. “Just you wait, Bunny, the next time you have your sights set on your fluffy kin you’ll think of me. I know it.” “We’ll see.” Aster smirked, and grabbing his duffel he exited the plane. He doubted very much he’s be forgetting Jack Frost anytime soon. As cold as it was inside the cockpit, Aster had forgotten to brace himself for the outside. “Fuck.” he swore as the temperature gripped him and stole his breath. It was the sudden silence, however, that struck him the most. After the constant noise of the bush plane, the snow covered world around him felt unwelcoming. He turned to wave back at Jack, but both he and the bearhawk were already gone. “BUNNY!” North’s shout cracked the silence like breaking ice and Aster spun on his heel to face his oldest friend. “Did ye see it?” he demanded. “No, you didn’t even set off wards.” North marched over to him like a looming disaster, face severe. “I waited for you, but until you appeared just now, there was no sign.” “And the time?” “Seventeen oh nine. Same as the reports.” The presumed time of death. “I was worried, Bunny. When the hour approached but you did not.” Bunnymund looked out onto the landing strip, searching for some sign, some hint of a plane arriving, but the snow along the road was undisturbed. Just like the snow in Dutch Harbor. Jack had appeared out of the night, and into the night he returned. They had crossed miles of land and ice in complete darkness within a single hour, within the same time it had taken for a hundred and twenty pounds of adolescent curiosity to board a three thousand pound plane, and sink with it below the ice. And yet the person he flew with had never even hinted at such a tragic end. There was no anger, no vengeance, and no ill will towards the person now sitting in his vacant seat. Just the ghost of a boy doing what he died dreaming he’d one day do. Rescuing people from boredom and racing the storm. “He’s not dangerous, North.” Bunny said softly, remembering the smiling face of the boy playing at being a pilot as he spoke of the man who killed him. “I don’t think he even knows he’d dead.”

#jackrabbit week #jackrabbit #frostbunny

Fly High

For JackRabbit Week 2017: Wings

Jack was born with wings, after a unpleasant run in with some village children left his wings broken for the past three hundred years he doesn’t want to show the Guardians, who of course find out.

Bunny decides he has to fix them

#jackrabbit #jackrabbit week #jackrabbit week 2017 #jack frost #bunnymund

April Showers Bring What Again?

“On the one hand, shopping is dependable: You can do it alone, if you lose your heart to something that is wrong for you, you can return it; it’s instant gratification and yet something you buy may well last for years.” Judith Krantz

When his powers had first manifested Jackson Overland had not in his wildest dreams imagined they would lead him here.

At most he had figured he’d be transferred to a cold storage facility, or a cryogenic stasis unit. He had eagerly registered his elemental ability with the goal of a higher wage and better benefits for himself and his family. Maybe move somewhere out of the lower city levels, somewhere high. An apartment with a view that didn’t include the next building’s wall and waste storage.

Now he was opening his own store.

His, not a franchise location, not a corporate office, not a temporary crisis building. All his.

He looked at his twenty employees, his employees, gathered at the entrance, the sliding glass doors polished to invisibility, and couldn’t feel his face for the amount he was grinning.

“Tomorrow is opening day.” he said, though the countdown on the tack board behind him had been saying so since this morning, “and I can say that I have never had a team work like you. I know it’s not what most of you were hired for, but you all came through as a team and did an absolutely fantastic job putting this store together.”

They didn’t share his joy, he knew. They were hourly employees, with lives and responsibilities of their own, and this was just a job, but he didn’t blame them for that. Thirty years ago working in the factories he had been the same, two years and three months ago when he had handed in his resignation as the manager of a small unit in the Department of Climate Control he had been the same. Just another clock punching, hour counting, putting in the work for someone else employee. Until he had finally struck out on his own.

“I know there have been setbacks, the tropical department’s humidifier is still being unruly,(an understatement) and the glacier dispensers haven’t come off the truck (even though they were due two weeks ago), but I want you all to know how proud I am of you. We came in this morning with a lot of work still ahead of us, but I can say that this store is as ready as we can make it.” And it was, from the perfectly zoned shelves to the spotlessly cleaned floors. Each and every corner of his store was the physical manifestation of his dreams. “So go home and get a good night’s sleep, because at nine am I want all of you back here for the grand opening.”

They cheered, and it felt like a stadium of people applauding. It felt like the end of the movie, when the hero won the game, and the team rushed together in shared glee.

As he watched them file out, heard the whisper quiet shh of his doors, he imagined every day like this.

Though he hoped the anxiety would dampen over time. He pressed a hand to his stomach that was cramped and aching from his constant worry. If this went on he’d have another ulcer in no time, and hadn’t he left the DCC because it had been stressing him? The bureaucracy, the politics, the smug smothering presence of those in power? He had hated it all, but what he had loathed the most was sorting through file after file of weather requests. Simple target storms that could have taken him five minutes to create, but his hands had been tied. A farming town in a mild drought, a conservation under fire threat, a mountain resort without snow that month.

But they were short staffed, and his job involved too much time and resource management. Budget cuts and politics ruled in his old job, a drought kept people dependent on municipal water, the Forestry services were confined to natural weather unless under extreme circumstances, and of course the fact that government resources could not be used to aid private businesses.

Denial after denial after denial had weighed on his heart. They were not natural disasters or difficult jobs, nothing that should have been banned. They were simply not important enough for the government weather service to waste time on. But Jack, who had sat in an office after spending thirty years climbing his way up trying to find a way around that red tape, who had chafed under the constant reminder that he and those under him were nothing but a ‘government resource’ to those in power, who had always always remembered the years in the factories as an ungifted, an unwanted unusable uneducated drone good for nothing but building magical devices for those greater than himself, they were important to him. He had wanted nothing so much as he had wanted to find a way to help them.

Now he had.

Jack smiled as he picked up one of the snowglobes from the display, his personal favourite. An instant snow day. With the proper tools any weather pattern could be seeded, and Jack had spent the past thirty years studying how to do it.

His life in the factory had paid off. Very few magical people bothered making their own things these days, that was the job of the ungifted, whose lack of talents made it near impossible to contaminate or sabotage the tools. For the first twenty-seven years of his life he had been trained on how to create things of a magical nature without any knowledge of the magic itself.

Then suddenly he had gifts, talents, a rare and intimate connection to the weather. His ability to radiate cold, not dispel heat or transfer it, but to physically devour the energy around him and use it to fuel his gifts made him one of the best weather witches in the country, possibly the world. Few could create as he did, and fewer bothered to.

Replacing the globe he began to close up for the night. He had a little under seven hours before he had to be back and preparing the store for his employees to arrive.

Grand opening. His belly did little flips at the thought. Would people buy? He hoped they would, he hoped he had finally solved the problem everyone was facing with their weather system. The monopoly of power centralized in the hands of the government, and the dependence on said government for fair skies.

As he lowered the gates in front of his wide windows he thought of what the world would be like now that anyone could have a little storm of their own. The problems it would solve, the pranks it would inspire. How soon until someone broke a rainshower over a wedding? How long would it take before kids unleashed snowdays on school grounds? He couldn’t wait to find out.

Just as he was shutting off the lights and heading to the upper level and his own living space the bell at the back buzzed aggressively through the dark store.

Irritation slashed through the nerves. The sign clearly said closed. The banner over the store had the exact date for their opening. They had handed out fliers all week with the information of when they would be opening and at what time. Still, still he had dealt with people walking into the store all day as they had been trying to work. He had had to set up a door guard for just that purpose, like a fucking Walmart greeter.

The bell continues to buzz like a pissed off bee as he stomped back down the stairs and to the doors. His nerves were beyond strained,and while he hated to give any kind of poor impression to a potential customer he was not, currently, at work. He was at home, and the store was closed. Right now, he was just another person, and he was very very tired.

Taking his nametag with its MANAGER title off and smacking it down on the greeting booth with glee he unlocked the beloved glass doors and shoved one open. It offered no resistance, all debris vacuumed from it’s slot.. “What?” he demanded.

A large creature of indeterminate species cut an imposing figure against the parking lot flood lights and he had the sudden realisation that answering the door in the middle of the night was a very good way to get robbed.

Then the upper part split and, aside from the quick hysterical horror that it was the jaws of a monster opening to eat him, he realised the person was not in fact a towering eight foot tall beast but a moderately sized Pooka.

“Ye got a Humidifier need fixin?” The alien asked. It was.. It was not a voice Jack would identify as Pookan.

“You’re late.” Jack straightened, hoping he hadn’t gawked. “I put in the request two months ago, Opening Day is tomorrow.”

“The unit ye got here is registered in D.C. ye wanna explain how it got to Pennsylvania?”

Jack’s irritation doubled and he swallowed the sarcastic insult because of fucking course the paperwork hadn’t been updated, why had he expected anything else from the Government. “Its a decommissioned unit.” He explained, with Pooka it was important to be to the point. They had, as he had quickly learned, no sense of humor. “I requested it as part of my retirement package when I left the DCC.” It had been the only thing he wanted, and he had still plucked his way through a tangled knitting basket’s worth of red tape to get it. Just because something was sitting in a junk storage somewhere didn’t mean the government was going to give it away. The Government’s livelihood depended on them being the only one to have something. Only the legal assurance that he wouldn’t be using it to form his own vigilante weather service made them let go.

“Come in.” He sighed and stepped back to let the alien through the doorway, closing and locking up behind them. “Its this way.” He led the Pooka through the departments, weaving past the displays and around the aisles. It was tantamount, he knew, that no customer be able to reach their goal immediately. There had to be some form of meandering, some light browsing, otherwise the store invited bankruptcy. Impulse buys lined every fixture, the cheapest of their items, anything under $20, and things he believed would catch the eye. As he walked he flipped through his mental plans for each aisle entrance fixture. He had a department for seasonal events of course, but it was important to put that holiday in the mind of the more focused shopper. Someone just coming in for a garden storm wouldn’t think of the approaching halloween, so one needed to have the fog charms out on full display.

“Quite the place ye got here.” The Pooka’s comment was unnerving. Jack had never met a Pooka who volunteered an opinion in anything but dry facts. His experience was that they prefered not to interact at all, and simply be left to their work. Jack had braced himself for being dismissed as a distraction as soon as they arrived to the unit.

“Its ah, its pretty great yeah. I’m happy with it.” He said, and ran a hand along a shelf full of sunshowers. They looked like fist sized golden marbles with a twist of blue at the center. The slide of his fingers across the display had them humming, the familiars within them singing like crystal at the presence of their creator.

“Quite the bunch of familiars ye got here, must’ve taken an army to make ‘em.”

“Hmm? No.” Jack informed as he opened the barricade that separated the aisles from the employee station within the department. “Its time consuming, but I make them myself.”

“Ye made all these?” The Pooka looked alarmed. “It must’ve taken ye YEARS.”

“Oh it did, two full years, but it was worth it.” Jack picked up one of the waiting crystals with his familiar inside, too parched to be anything but a little scout yet, but with the right amount of water it could become any storm he wished. Working with the DCC he had created an endless amount of them, sending them out into the world like sheepdogs to herd storms towards the assignment, after he had always simply let them free, he had never had the heart to cannibalize them as others had done, but over the years he had learned that he was the exception.

“T-TWO YEARS?” The Pooka sputtered, and that was a unique experience, watching a member of the unflappable Pookan race gape at him wordless. “How are ye not in a COMA?” he demanded.

“I’m a weather mage,” Jack explained, as he had done a thousand times before, “ but my talents are cold creation.”

“Ye can’t.. Ye can’t create cold.” The Pooka explained, like the frustrated teachers who had tried to guide him in the ways of magic after developing his talents so late in age.

“I can. The energy in the matter around me feeds my magic, instead of taking it from myself, and makes everything cold.” He had never taken it to an extreme, the world they lived in was teeming with ways for magic users to replenish themselves, so he had never proven if he could reach absolute zero, but he didn’t doubt he that could. “This is the unit, we rewired it and changed out the crystals, even replaced most of the outer panels, but it’s still not functioning.” Jack put his hand against the flat stone box, looking to the untrained eye like any other green granite counter.

Jack had paid his supplier North a fortune in high compression ice to get his hands on that much green granite. Witches loved nothing more than aesthetic.

The Pooka was studying him in a familiar way, Pooka were frequently giving him the side eye at the DCC as they went about with their many inventions, they were not permitted to interact with the local populace, and often didn’t care to, working only with the planet’s governing forces. Trading their magical technologies for resources only Earth could provide. They had always given Jack the creeps, with their rigid speech and severe faces, he had never been able to reconcile their personalities with their far too adorable appearance.

They also had an uncompromising dislike for the mentioning of their resemblance to Earth rabbits. Which Jack couldn’t make sense of.

If Jack had looked at all like something adorable on an alien planet he would milk it for all it was worth. That was grade A bartering material there. But he didn’t expect a race that sneered at all things emotive to understand the importance of such a bartering chip.

“Well, lets start her up and see what the problem is.” The Pooka said after moments of uncomfortable silence. He bent down on his haunches, his long legs perfectly made for squatting peeked out from under his green coat and Jack realized the alien probably wasn’t wearing any pants, at least not the loose floor length ones he associated with them.

The sight of the delicate black pattern against soft grey fur caught his eye. He had never seen a Pooka out of their strict military dress robes, but this one was in nothing but a long green trench coat, he knew from offhanded rumor that they had clan markings magically dyed into their fur, but had only seen what was prominently displayed on their foreheads.

The panels, easily six inches thick and a literal pain in Jack’s back to take apart slide aside easily under the Pooka’s hands, claws ticking musically against the granite. “Everything seems t’be working proper like, ye did a good job restoring it. What seems off?”

“Its not that it isn’t working as it should, its not working the way I want it to.” Jack explained, passing his familiar between his hands. “Its a life support system for familiars.”

“Yeah, in extreme circumstances. Its supposed ta collect the atoms and humidify the air even if there is little t’no water present. Not exactly life support though.”

“You’ve never been in a forest fire.” Jack countered. “Normally our familiars herd storm systems, or collect water vapors and create systems if there are none, the humidifier can take water fed into it and replenish a system, and as such any weather or other water based familiar. My problem is that it should be able to transfer that humidity to a dormant familiar, just as a water spirit can be sealed away in an item, but every time I try nothing happens. I can’t figure out what’s blocking the machine from storing the humidity.” Jack sighed and leaned over the top of the granite counter, rolling his familiar between his hands. “Its a pain to keep dunking them in the fountain to gather the water I need for the storms, and its costly. Water is not cheap, even for a weather witch. I can’t rely on the air around my customers’ location, many of them are buying storms because there IS none around them, and I can’t guarantee a familiar will herd for a customer without me there. Too far out and they tend to drift off by themselves.”

“Wait.” The Pooka held up a paw, and Jack was surprised to see the little pads of skin on the tips were black instead of pink like his nose. “Yer telling me that this machine, hand made by Pooka to create vapor into the AIR to create life supplying storms for undeveloped planets, and ye want t’use it like yer refilling water bottles?”

Jack had expected irritation from a Pooka, they were almost religiously strict about how their technologies were allowed to be used, and any kind of adaptation was considered an insult. This one though, seemed like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of laughter.

“I’d hardly call my familiars ‘water bottles’.” Jack said cooly, staring down his nose at the smirking alien. It was an act he could only do while the creature was hunched over, since he barely reached halfway past five foot himself.

“Ye want t’just lob those little crystal balls o’yers into this box and fill em up with water.” That was unmistakably a cackle. Was this Pooka mad? Had the DCC, in retaliation for his retirement, sent him the one malfunctioning Pooka in the whole damn galaxy?

“Is that a problem?” Jack asked, smiling with far too much teeth.

“Not one bit.” The Pooka said, and unbuttoned his coat to reveal nothing but a leather strap underneath. The sight of so much fur openly displayed on the normally prudish species had Jack jolting back embarrassed.

“W-what are y-” he stammered.

“M’gonna modify it some.” The Pooka explained, tugging his strap over his head and opening the pack. He began pulling out small items that Jack recognized as tools of their trade, it was the only thing aside from the ears that were comfortably familiar about this encounter.

They had sent him the crazy nudist of the species. He was going to absolutely ruin that department. He was going to make them so obsolete the Politicians would be clamoring to underfund them and absorb them back into the EPA. He was going to turn the whole damn planet into a paradise just to spite them.

“These older gen models were built t’be gifts.” The Pooka explained as he set to work taking the humidifier apart. “To keep them from being abused as a source of water for only those in power, or a weapon to storm out an enemy, they were outfitted with a few failsafes. One being that they can’t create water themselves, only add vapor into the air for natural storms to form.” he pulled out several of the crystals powering the object and set them aside, reaching in deeper to delicately wiggle out the panel holding the fist sized created lapis Jack had received as a gift from his mother for his thirtieth birthday. He held his breath around his objection, his mother had few years left, and it had taken her most of what she lived to buy that for him. Savings that she had scraped to send him to a technical trade school he would never see. “We just need to bypass those little restrictions.”

“And then I can use it on my familiars?”

“When I’m done with it, ye can use it for yer own personal lake.”

Jack made a pleased sound in his throat and leaned back, grinning. The Pooka’s ears swiveled in his direction, but he remained elbow deep in the device. “So,” Jack asked before the silence could extend farther, “I didn’t catch your name?”

The Pooka ears flicked in what Jack recognized as irritation, like he was being harassed by an ear obsessed fly. It was a reaction he often got when chatting with Pooka, and he signed, resigned to being dismissed after all.

“Bunnymund.” The alien mumbled. “E. Aster Bunnymund.”

Jack gawked. He couldn’t help it. Bunnymund. THE Bunnymund. The Pooka’s, Bunnymund’s, (BUNNYMUND’S oh gods he was going to have a panic attack) ears flinched like they wanted to lay flat but stayed erect through force of will. Jack realized he was probably making an absolute fool of himself as he stared but BUNNYMUND, the actual FOUNDER of the planet, the Pooka who had terraformed Earth and the closest thing they had to a living God was in his store TOUCHING HIS THINGS.

Oh gods he’d snapped at him. He’d actually told Bunnymund, creator of continents, that he was late. He was going to die of humiliation.

He wanted to apologize, he wanted to shower Bunnymund in gratitude for fixing the device HE INVENTED and bypassing what was probably his own failsafes so Jack could use it to- Oh god Bunnymund had called them waterbottles. He wanted to die. He was going to burn the store down and kill himself.

Instead he blurted out “Why are you naked?” in a voice that didn’t even crack.

Something that embarrassing should not have come that casually from his mouth.

Bunnymund’s ears perked up stiff in his direction. “Ah.. I run.”

“You… run?” that made … no sense.

“Underground mate, I have me tunnels. Gets me everywhere, but they’re a bit cramped, ye follow?”

“You run.” Jack repeated, his imagination conjuring the image of the Pooka running full tilt like a rabbit in a tunnel. He couldn’t help it, he laughed. It was long and gasping, and Bunnymund looked severely pissed off, he couldn’t stop. He’d try, but as soon as he saw the Pooka’s face he’d laugh again. “You.. on all fours.. and naked!”

“Oi!” Bunnymund stood up, insult in every tense quivering muscle and bristled tuft of fur, but Jack just slid down, back to the shelf of his familiars, and laughed until he couldn’t breath.

It had been a long day.

He fully expected Bunnymund to collect his things and storm off, leaving Jack with a half dismantled Humidifier, but the Pooka seemed to deflate as Jack calmed down.

“S’not that funny.” Bunnymund mumbled.

“Have you SEEN your species?” Jack choked out from behind he breathless grinning. His stomach had cramped again, but he wasn’t sick with nerves this time so he didn’t care. He did need to pee now though.

“Course I have.” Bunnymund said tersely. “Bunch of a-holes.”

Jack gaped at him all over again, then cackled.

“Don’t start that again.” Bunnymund warned.

“I can’t help it.” Jack grinned. “My hero is a crazy swearing Australian and fixing my box, naked. I’m having the BEST dream.”

“Ye have bizarre dreams there mate.”

“You’re in one.” Jack informed him. “What does that make you?”

“A crazy naked Australian?”

Jack laughed again. “okay, no more.” He begged. “I need to pee. I can’t laugh more.”

“Thanks for sharing.” Bunnymund crouched back and started work on the Humidifier again.

“You’re welcome.” He chirped.

Bunnymund grunted, but didn’t reply. Probably afraid Jack would go crazy with laughter again and piss himself.

Jack just sat cross-legged and watched. Bunnymund was much more animated than the Pooka he normally interacted with in the DCC, more interesting. His ears moved, instead of staying focused on his work Bunnymund seemed to be listening to his own thoughts, they displayed more emotion, frustration or interest as he attempted to recreate his invention, and they turned towards Jack often. He would frown, his whiskers vibrating, but his eyes stayed on his work.

Jack didn’t mind the silence, unlike the other Pooka Bunnymund didn’t creep him out at all, and he was very nice to look at. Like a very pretty rabbit, with all his fur on display and fluffed up from his previous agitation Jack had the very powerful urge to reach out and touch him.

But even with an eccentric Pooka, that was a good way to get your hand chomped off at the wrist.

He signed, it would be nice though.

Bunnymund’s ears turned towards him and he held out a paw, surprising Jack. Fuck, had he spoken out loud? Did Bunnymund… was he going to let him touch him?

“Ball.” he demanded.

“What?” Jack flinched at the green glare that earned him, but clued in. “Oh, here,” he passed Bunnymund the familiar still in his hands.

Bunnymund set the granite panels back into place and stood, slapping one of the premade plastic sheets Jack had next to the device onto the counter he placed the crystal in the center of the inked design and began to mutter the humidifier’s incantation.

There was no glow, no noise or surge of magic. The air simply got heavier with moisture, like breathing too long in a confined space. Then Jack’s familiar began to hum, and in a snap, like a crack of electricity, the moisture was gone and in the center of the crystal was a thick twisting band of blue.

“Ha! Nice!” Jack scooped it up and surveyed the globe, searching out his weather spirit for any signs of discomfort. It seemed happy, less thirsty, and eager to get out and play. His familiars were always very friendly.

“Wow, this is awesome. I can’t believe it worked. Which spell did you use?” Jack leaned over to study the template. Whistling when he recognized the fire suppressant spell he had crafted for drought seasons. “That’s a powerful spell, a good strong soaker storm,” and not a template he intended for general sale. Custom order only. Too bad, he disliked when a powerful spirit had to sit for too long, they got irritable. But a forest wasn’t likely to complain about a thunderstorm. “You okay?”

“S’fine.” Bunnymund’s eyes slid sideways, not meeting his gaze. The spell wasn’t as exhausting without creating the familiar, but it still took a good chunk of power, and Jack doubted Bunnymund could grab it from the air the way he did. “No worries mate, its not my first time.”

“Okay.” Jack let it go, magic users tended to get irritable if you babied them, especially if you did something that would knock them on their ass and looked fresh as a daisy the way Jack always did. Egos were abundant among the gifted, so he didn’t push.

“I’ll buy it.” Bunnymund declared, and Jack looked back at him.

“Excuse me?”

“Its for sale right?” Bunnymund demanded, and why did he look so pissed off? Didn’t it work? Wasn’t this a success? “I’ll buy it.”

“Um.. yeah but.. are you sure? It’s a pretty big storm. Not criticising, I should have had that template stored, but do you have the room for it?”

“I live in Australia mate. Got a whole continent.”

Jack held the crystal closer. “You’re sure?”

“Is it for sale or not? Blimey.” the Pooka snapped, and Jack had a good view of teeth.

“Y-yes.” He looked between Bunnymund and the familiar, trying to decode the suddenly tense situation. “Here, this way.”

Jack led the way back towards the registers, mind retracing the last few minutes. He knew he’d probably irritated the Pooka when he laughed, but the guy had settled down and got back to work after. Why, if he was so pissed off, did he want to buy a storm? Did he want to smash it in the store and cause chaos? Surely someone as old and powerful as Bunnymund knew Jack’s familiar wouldn’t act out while Jack was there to command it. So.. why?

Jack waved a hand over the register, his sapphire ring activating the device without prompting.

“If ye have them set for runes, why the key cards?” Bunnymund asked, indicating to the employee cardswipe.

“I have ungifted employees.” Jack explained as he calculated the price based on his estimate of the square footage it would cover. “I don’t discriminate based on talents.”

“Progressive of ya.”

“Not really. My family is ungifted, I’m an anomaly.”

“That why ye let yer hair go white?”

Jack paused in wrapping and tugged on the hair at his ear self-consciously. It had silvered in his late forties and he had, like others, dyed it to maintain the image of eternal youth. But after leaving the DCC he hadn’t really bothered. Why should he, when his mom and baby sister were struggling with their mortality and he hadn’t changed a day beyond his awakening.

His cells, taking energy from the world around him, simply did not age.

“Yes.” He answered simply and changed the subject. “This large a storm will be $350, American.”

Bunnymund tugged a wallet out from the pocket of the coat slung over his arm and handed Jack a credit card. Normally Pooka paid in gold or silver, but what about Bunnymund had been normal anyway?

Jack handed the Pooka his card back as well as the glossy blue paper bag with his familiar, Bunnymund’s familiar now. “Thanks for fixing my box.” Jack tried to salvage at least some part of the conversation. “You’ll get most of your money back when you bill me.”

“No charge mate. Its in my contract.” Bunnymund gruffed.

Jack was left pondering that as he unlocked the cage, and then the glass doors to let the Pooka go. “Well, thank you, regardless. I probably shouldn’t have charged you for the storm then.”

“She’s aces.” Bunnymund walked past him.

Well, if that’s how it was, then that’s how it was. It wasn’t to first brush off from a Pooka he’d gotten. But…

“Actually, there is somethin.”

“Yes?” Jack looked up eagerly. In the beat of a heart Bunnymund had a fistfull of Jack’s shirt and Jack had a face full of… face.

He blinked rapidly, mind trying to process the sudden position he was in. Bunnymund was.. They were. Were they kissing? They were. They were absolutely kissing.

Bunnymund pulled back and grinned wickedly at him. “Revenge,” he explained, “for laughing at me.”

“Oh.” Jack said stupidly brain numb.

“Sweet dreams mate.” With a tap of his foot he disappeared down a hole in the ground and Jack was left staring blankly at the the the…the WEED growing out of his freshly laid concrete.

He reached up to touch his lips, but missed and ended up brushing his cheek instead. It didn’t matter, an entire side of his face tingled from the kiss, the fur against his nose and cheek, the way every time he blinked his eyelash had brushed against Bunnymund’s face, the feel of.. Of of of.. the feel of..

Jack closed the door mechanically, shutting the cage and locking it and turning off the lights. Mind still… minding…. with thoughts and junk.

Then he was struggling to get it all open again because if he left the flower there it was sure to get trampled by his employees on their way to work.

#jackrabbit week #jackrabbit #day two #magic store #my fic #bunnymund #jack frost

Almost done, just two more fight scenes to go before the end. Anybody want to beta it for me? I'm a little burned out on it.

#jackrabbit week #soul bond au #calefaction

He had thought his torture would end there, discovering the identity of the one he had… deluded himself into loving, into believeing he was destined to find, had simply been Jack Frost all this time was dream shattering enough. He had been forced to spend even more time in his contemptable company due to the extreme cercumstances they now found themselves in, short of tooth fairies, belief, and time.

He didn’t think he could hate Pitch more.

The resonance had clung to him all the while as they dodged and weaved and chased eachother through the cities. “Is that a challenge cottontail?” was all it took to start, and suddenly they were dancing. He had almost convinced himself he was having fun.

Bunny tried not to dwel on how close it was to that first dream, the only one to stick with him, of eggs and baskets and a streak of blue beside him. A wish he only knew himself to have the moment he took the Oath.

Then came Pitch. Then went Sandy. Then went Easter.

And now they were here.

“Sorry about the.. Kageroo thing.” Jack had appologized softly, crouched beside him overlooking the continental tunnels. Eggs as far as could be seen were marching, a stream of colors flowing past. And them, together, on the shore.

He had flown off with that child in his arms, soft and warm and so trusting and Bunny had forgotten what it was like to hold something that wasn’t a plant or an egg. He had never bothered with worrying for his own passing time before, time held no countdown for him, no set finish line, only a destination, only a promised meeting.

Now though, as he watched Jack dissapear into his tunnels he felt it, the confusing and frustrating longing. To turn it back, take it back. It had never, never been so strong as that moment. Not even as the universe emptied around him and all that was left of his people, his friends, his life had been in the past. He had stood on the shores of time and watched Pitch Black destroy all he had cared for, but still he knew the risks.

But Jack, so giving and kind in the face of adversity, he had misshandled Jack.

Now he risked losing him forever.

“He has to go.” he told the others, and they all knew it. For all that he had shouted at the sprite, the lies he had flung, “We never should have trusted you!” they knew the truth.

Jack had no belief base. Sandy was gone, the fairies were gone, Easter was gone. Maybe they would hold out until Christmas, maybe the beilef of the older children to who dissapointment was no stranger, the smallest children who could be distracted and look easily to the future, maybe their belief would hold on. Maybe the Guardians would hold with them.

But Jack... Jack would not survive as a Guardian. There was simply not enough to supoort him. Without his own believers he would fade.

If they were to end, Bunny would not drag him down with them.

And perhaps that was his fate, their resonance tied to this moment, when he would chose to save this one single life.

It was just his own damn fault he’d gone and fallen in love.

#jackrabbit week #part of it #bunnymund #jackrabbit #rotg #drabble #light of long dead suns

Jackrabbit Week 2016 - Day 2 - Murder

Author: Renoku Rating: M Warnings: Language, Graphic Depictions, Violence Word Count: 5,000 (7,000 overall) Summary: In the domed country of Santoff Claussen, powers are commonplace. However, there are some that are more dangerous than others, and when someone places a hit on you, you do what you can to survive. Even if the man you love has thought you were dead for the past three months.

+++++

“You said it before you left. I’d wanted to hear it then. Because Jack,” Aster said, his voice as steady as the earth he stood upon, “I’d been prepared to hear you say it every day for the rest of my life.”

«Ao3» (see Ao3 for author’s notes and entire work)