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In Jack’s defense, he had been fully on board with flying away from the Guardians to the one place he couldn’t harm anyone and throwing that damn box of teeth that had gotten him into this mess as far into the ocean as he could. But, when he saw a shadow speeding across the grass far below him, he knew it was Pitch.
Pitch, who had lured him into that dark tunnel underground, picking apart his fears with ease in a too-smooth voice.
Pitch, who had given him the stupid teeth in the first place that made the Guardians turn on him.
Pitch, who was the reason the Guardians had kidnapped him and gotten him involved in this!
So if, instead of going to Antarctica to scream into the void while he covered the continent in a blizzard, Jack decided to go after Pitch to scream at him and cover whatever continent he was on in a blizzard, well it wasn’t like the spirits didn’t yell at him all the time already. Really, what was one more thing for them to hate him for? On top of everything he’d already done, what was one more goddamn reason ?
Jack goes flying after the shadow, zig-zagging across cities and fields and roads with barely a thought except to make Pitch feel just a fraction of the pain he’s brought on him with the Guardians, wind howling in his ears, egging him on.
When the shadow pulls up short, Jack nearly misses it with how fast he’s been going to keep up. By the time he manages to circle back, Pitch is corporal and kneeling in a goddamn ditch next to a rural road’s four way stop, miles away from any humans. Not that any would see either of them in the first place.
Jack floats in closer, wanting to see what Pitch is kneeling over. The guy doesn’t seem the type to kneel at all, especially not in a ditch of all places. He feels too regal for that, as if he’s an actual king and it’s not just a nickname.
A nightmare, the ones that are horses formed from Sandy’s corrupted sand, lies on its side next to Pitch’s kneeling form. Its beautifully sculpted snout is still against the long grass, only twitching occasionally as it tries to curl its legs closer to its body. One of Pitch’s hands strokes the artful neck, while the rest of him is hunched over the torso of the nightmare. Quiet whimpers and half-choked whispers drift up to him.
Without thinking, Jack lowers himself in the air, anger seeping out of him at those sounds.
“What do you want?” Pitch’s voice holds none of his almost-lyrical smoothness now, replaced by a roughness Jack’s heard countless times from his own voice, brought about from crying until he couldn’t stand.
“What happened to them?” Jack asks softly, not moving from his spot a dozen yards away from Pitch’s hunched-over figure and the mare.
This time he gets a wet laugh, one of those that isn’t born from fun but from tears and self-aware helplessness. “What do you think?” Pitch replies, still not turning around or stopping his strokes.
Jack swallows down the knot of emotions in his throat. The Guardians, then. Or him. “Are they...?”
“If she were fine, Jack, I wouldn’t be here now would I?” The deadpan delivery is more of the Pitch he saw against the Guardians, but there’s a bittersweetness to it that keeps him off balance, not used to this kind of sorrow from, well, anyone.
It isn’t the powerful sobs knocking a child to their knees, it isn’t the choked back tears of an adult from the horror of humanity, it’s grief but so much more. It’s intimate knowledge of death, of loneliness, of bitter acceptance because there’s nothing else to feel. Because anything else has been worn out long ago. Because there’s no one there .
Watching Pitch’s shoulder tremble slightly, his back to Jack in the ultimate sign of ‘ strike me down, I don’t care ’, Jack lowers his staff. He can’t.
He kneels down next to Pitch, not as close to the mare as the spirit is, he doesn’t have that right he knows, but he’s there.
Only one of the mare’s eyes is pointed at him, but she stares him down, pinning him there with its pain-filled void. “Hey there girl,” Jack greets softly, gently holding out his knuckles like he’s seen kids do to horses. Not sure that’s right when dealing with spirit creatures, but it’s at least an attempt.
The mare sniffs his hand, sand surprisingly smooth against his knuckles. Frost ferns unfurl against the sand’s sleek curves, but the nightmare doesn’t recoil. It just nudges his hand and then lays back down.
“Her name is Umbra,” Pitch tells him, just barely tilting his head enough for Jack to see half of his face. Molten gold runs a track down his ashen cheeks, bright even in the cloudy night air. It’s honestly a hauntingly beautiful sight; completely misplaced framed against the dirt corner formed by the roads’ intersecting ditches, but beautiful.
“Hi Umbra,” Jack says instead of commenting on any of that. “Can I pet you?”
Umbra gazes up at him from her grass pillow before neighing softly.
“Yes,” Pitch translates quietly.
Lightly, Jack strokes her snout, from under her cloudy black eye to the beginning of the horns around her mouth and back again. The sand shifts under his hand, not quite fur but not like normal sand or even Sandy’s dream sand. It’s honestly incredible. And then he glances over at Pitch.
Pitch, who has a hand pressed into Umbra’s flank, right over top a large gash in her sand. A slash that could only have been made by a sword. North’s sword.
“Pitch,” Jack starts, not sure what he’s going to say but having to say something, maybe that he’s sorry , that he didn’t know , that he never would have if—
“Not now, Jack. Please.”
So they sit in silence, gently petting Umbra while Pitch keeps one hand firmly on her gash. No blood or sand or whatever is flowing out of the gash, there’s no reason to put pressure on it, but Pitch keeps a hand there anyway. He strokes her neck with the other hand, gently, as if used to the motion.
This... this isn’t the maniac spirit he remembers from Sandy’s death. Nor is he the one in full control at Tooth’s palace.
The silence gives Jack time to think over their interactions, every word Pitch has spoken to or around him, trying to reconcile this broken spirit with the one he’d seen go toe to toe against the Guardians with a wild grin.
“Maybe I want what you have: to be believed in.”
“It’s your turn to not be believed in.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to be weak .”
“Pitch, why did you give me teeth?” Jack quietly asks, not looking away from Umbra.
“Memories, Jack. They’re the only thing we really have, once we’re spirits. Without memories, we’re nothing. As you seem to be the only one to understand what being a nothing is like, I thought you may as well have them. Doesn’t do me any good anyway, does it?”
“Pitch...” Jack stares at him, kneeling in the dirt, hunched over a nightmare slowly dying out under a cloudy night sky, gold falling from his eyes.
A spirit trying to be someone , be seen , be believed in. Who gave him the ability to find the part of him that has been missing for over three hundred years. Who’s here, with a dying creature, instead of hunting down the Guardians or attacking him or crushing more kids’ dreams.
A hand reaches into his hoodie pocket and draws out his tooth box. One finger to the center of the capsule throws him into memories he didn’t know he had.
Colonial North America.
A family.
His family.
His sister.
Skating.
The ice.
Cracks.
The tree branch.
A crook.
Hopscotch.
He saved her.
Water.
Cold.
And above it all, the moon.
“Jack? Jack.” Pitch is staring at him, wide-eyed, one hand on his shoulder. “Jack are you alright?”
“I— I had a sister. I had a family!” He felt loved, he was loved. “My sister, we were just ice skating, but she got on thin ice and— she would’ve drowned! But I switched places with her, she was safe and I... I died.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Pitch says, squeezing his shoulder gently. “Death... is hard, for most spirits.” Something in his gaze says he isn’t one of those spirits. And when Jack glances at Umbra, he can tell she doesn’t have much time left, just as Pitch must know.
“The man in the moon, he made me Jack Frost,” he admits, having to tell someone, wanting to tell Pitch. “He gave me these powers, for saving her.”
North said they all had centers. Wonder, Hope, Dreams, Memories. Fear.
He had asked what Jack’s was, and he didn’t know what to say then. He’s Jack Frost, bringer of winter and snow days. He makes snow and ice, commands the winds, plays pranks.
But now he knows he used to be Jackson Overland, big brother and prankster. He joked around and laughed, but he protected and sacrificed when push came to shove.
His powers came from the moon, and he clearly doesn’t know their extent if the ice lightning says anything. And if he became a spirit because he saved his sister, then his powers have to be connected to that somehow. Which means...
He doesn’t think as he slams his hands on top of the gash in Umbra, focusing on channeling his powers into her. Letting his powers work how they want, ice freezing over the gash like a scab while snow fills in the missing sand. He can feel more than see the ice forming around her hooves, sharpening them into weapons, the frost covering her coat and separating it into armor.
Protect , the wind whispers in his ear. So his power responses.
Once he feels Umbra move underneath his hands, Jack lets go and sits back, letting her shift up until she’s standing tall in all her frosted, nightmare glory.
Pitch rises with her, golden eyes wide, hand reaching up to pet her snout, hesitating at the last moment. Umbra snorts and bucks her head under his hand, breaking the tension in Pitch’s shoulders. He chuckles wetly, gold dripping down his already-stained cheeks as he pets her, fingers tracing the frost curling over her corrupted sand.
“Jack,” he whispers, shaking his head when he doesn’t continue. “Jack, I— You—”
“I got to save my sister,” he says, fingers absent-mindedly tracing the frosted wood’s knots as he avoids meeting Pitch’s gaze. “And now Umbra. I want to protect kids, people, anyone who deserves it.”
“It’s great being a Guardian! But there’s a catch.”
He glances up at Pitch. “But I don’t want to do it on the Guardians’ terms. I want to explore my powers, without being tied down or forced to follow someone else’s orders.”
“And I just want to be believed in, again,” Pitch replies quietly. “I’m tired of living in the shadows, around the edges of civilization, never part of anything because I don’t exist .” He clutches his chest. “But Jack, you understand me. You understand what it’s like.”
He holds out a hand to Jack.
“Join me, Jack.”
And Jack looks up at him.
The moon still hasn’t emerged from the clouds, they’re still too thick for that, but the frost and ice on Umbra glows just enough to cast him in a faint blue. It makes the gold of his eyes glitter, grants depth to his form built from shadows. He’s beautiful, cast in black and blue, not a combination he’d thought would look good but does.
A pale, blue-tinted grey hand reaches out to him, for him.
Pitch wants Jack. He wants him .
“Why me?” he asks. The Guardians wanted him because of the Man in the Moon, not because of who he is. Pitch... why would he want him?
“What do you want me to say, Jack?” Pitch shoots back, eyebrow raised in question. “You’re powerful, you are practically spirit royalty, you saved Umbra. You understand my desire to be believed in and long for a family, same as I do. And, Jack,” he grins down at him, teeth practically glowing, “you know how to have a bit of fun . What more reason do I need?”
Jack grins back at him. And takes his hand.
The clouds thin as he stands up, the full moon’s form beginning to shine through. The wind curls around the three of them, chittering excitedly to Jack. Fun , it tells Jack. Protect .
Eying up Pitch, Jack has a feeling there will be plenty of fun to be had in the weeks and years to come, if they stick together. Protecting people from things as well, balancing his drive for chaos and keeping people safe. Maybe even protect people with laughter, bring joy into their life.
He can feel the disapproval in the moon’s light, almost burning through the remaining clouds it’s trying so hard. Jack just grins. After all, what’s some disapproval from an absentee father/creator when Pitch promises to let him be him ?
“You know,” he says, letting go of Pitch’s hand to lean against his staff casually while still eying him, “I wouldn’t stop being me. That’s just not going to happen here. And I’m not going to follow you all the time. Not even half the time, honestly.”
“Oh Jack,” Pitch replies, eyes glittering a silvery-gold in the furious moonlight. “I’m counting on it.”