Merry Whumpmas! Day 2: 'Broken Bone'
Hurtcember Day 2: 'Breakdown'
Whumpcember Day 2: 'This is your fault'
Medcember Day 2: 'Septic Shock'
For the Merry Whumpmas 2024 Day 2 prompt "Broken Bone"!
For @medcember's Day 2 prompt "Septic Shock"
For @whumpcember's Day 2 prompt "This is your fault"
For @hurtcember's Day 2 prompt "Breakdown"
Type: Fanfiction | Fandom: Rise of the Guardians (2012) | Characters: E. Aster Bunnymund, Sophie Bennett, Jamie Bennett, Jack Frost, Other Rise of the Guardians Character(s) | Ships: None.
Warnings & Triggers: Major Character Injury, Illness, Near Death.
During the very next spring, Bunnymund watches the river moss and sedum and green flowering lichen creep and cover the oasis's stones.
He always welcomes down the two kids: Jack Frost's first believer and The Last Light, Jamie Bennett, and... Jamie's sister, Sophie. Out of all the Guardians there ever were, Bunnymund's her favorite.
Sophie often runs around the Warren, chasing the unpainted eggs, laughing at the brooks bubbling and ancient-carved stone heads dancing. Sophie jumps at Bunnymund's feet to dance along, eagerly tugging his paw, batting her eyes up at Bunnymund without saying a word and getting whatever she wants. As if princess to Bunnymund's own domain. She may as well be. No other kid was ever so loved.
"No, Sophie! Don't jump off those!" Jamie yells, waving over to his little sister taking tumbles off the stone heads flailing to catch her.
One of them misses, and Sophie lands with a thud. But she's smiling.
Reassured by it, Bunnymund waves off a frowning Jamie instead. "No more fussing! It's an Easter picnic, mate!" he announces. Jamie's shoulders slowly go tense. "We got jellybeans! We got ham and we got carrot cake and we got pepper deviled eggs and we got--!"
At another high-pitched holler, Sophie leaping again, Jamie gets up. He marches to the nearby pond she plays at, calling out again.
"What are ya gonna do when Sophie's all grown up?" Jack mumbles, glancing between her and Bunnymund's eyes entirely focused on her. "The day's coming, y'know. She's turning nine in December this year."
"You should ask yourself that question instead, mate," Bunnymund sharply points out, and Jack makes a bit of a face, nibbling on one of the deviled eggs and ignoring Jamie's back. "He'll be out of middle school soon enough. That's usually when they stop believing..."
"Hm, no." Jack shakes his head, insisting, and Bunnymund huffs, "No. I'm not worried about Jamie. You guys have had adult believers."
"But they never remember to look... and to SEE us, Jack."
Unconvinced, Jack still shakes his head, frowning now like Jamie.
Jamie's panicking scream echoes through the Warren, and a fierce-looking Jack's running off even before Bunnymund gets himself up.
At the pond's edge, water ripples. Where's Sophie?
He manages to get it out between breathes, Jack's hands protectively clasping Jamie's face--"Sophie fell in! I think she's hurt!"
Bunnymund doesn't wait, diving in, searching her out underwater. His rabbit-heart thrums fast. Something must be wrong. Very, very wrong. Because Sophie knows how to swim... and if she can't swim...
When Bunnymund pulls her out, his fur soaked, Sophie gasps for air and trembling and cries in Bunnymund's paws, holding her left arm.
It looks distorted to Bunnymund, swelling red. And unnaturally warm.
He was the fastest out of everyone. Bunnymund whispered to Sophie cry-hiccupping Bunnymund's name into his dripping wet bunny fur, unsure of how to make her better, heaving them above ground.
Unfortunately, Sophie's arm didn't get any better. The skin purpled. Bunnymund thought he caught a whiff of a fever on Sophie building.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennett took her away, frantic.
They were mad at Jamie at first, scolding him for not watching Sophie and letting her get into trouble, then... they weren't. Sophie got worse. From an infected bone fracture, Bunnymund learns.
For a while, Sophie slept while being taken care of doctors. And slept. And slept past the time Sophie was meant to wake after her surgery.
Before she woke up in that morning, nearly a month after Easter, Jamie confronted a devastated-looking in Jamie's own bedroom. "This is your fault!" Jamie yelled, tearfully ramming little fists against Bunnymund's chest. "I hate you! I hate you, Ihateyou!"
He finally broke, angrily sobbing. Jack, watching them solemnly from the door, nodded. Bunnymund lowered his ears and hugged onto Jamie sobbing louder and hugging Bunnymund back reluctantly.
(Jamie didn't hate him... he didn't hate anyone, Jack mumbles to Bunnymund when it's late in the night. That wouldn't ever be Jamie.)
"It is my fault, Jamie... I thought she would always be safe with me..."
Bunnymund sneaks to Sophie's window as soon as she's home.
Sophie notices him, grinning, trying to open her window. Instead of having her struggle with it, Bunnymund opens it and climbs in.
Bunnymund's nose-whiskers twitch. She smells like herself again. "Hi, Soph," he says, eyeing Jamie wheel up Sophie's oxygen tank.
"Did you have something to say, Sophie?" Jamie mentions.
She flattens her lips, glaring a moment at her brother.
"I... I promise I won't practice hopping anymore."
"That's what happened in the Warren?" Bunnymund mumbles, awed. "You were trying to practice to be... a rabbit like me... and hop high?"
When Sophie looks down, a little more ashamed, Jamie seems satisfied and pats her uninjured arm. Bunnymund minds her little hot pink cast, hugging Sophie, cupping the back of her blonde head.
"You need to all better first, okay... that's the most important thing," Bunnymund reminds her, letting an eager-eyed Sophie rest on his huge and furred knee. "Then... I'm gonna teach you even more secret rabbit tricks. Not even the other Guardians know about them."
It's worth hearing a giggle. Because one day, Sophie will grow up. And Sophie will understand how truly, deeply loved she really is.
