Tiny Little Treasures

Im trying desperatly

Chapter Text

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.

--Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, iii

* * * * *

Jack swiped at icicles, repressing the urge to make more just so he could knock those down, too.

"Why is it you're always making a mess?"

"It was an accident!"

"Well your little 'accident' cost me an entire batch of chocolate, and now I'm the one that's gotta clean it up and start all over again."

"I said I was sorry! I can help make more-"

"I think you've done enough helping for one day."

"But Bunny-"

"Jack, just leave."

Fuck it.

He conjured more icicles on the tree branches as he walked through the forest of Burgess, and took great pleasure in the shattering clinks that came from breaking them.

What did Bunny know, anyway? He'd only be trying to help! He'd had oven mitts on and everything, but a bit of chocolate had sloshed over the rim onto his foot. Recently boiling chocolate? Hot stuff. Jack Frost? Not so much. They were lucky all he'd done was drop the ridiculously big pot and spilled it rather than frosted the whole damn kitchen over in his shock.

He'd really wanted to help make that chocolate, too. His memories had been filling themselves in, and every now and then he'd remember snippets of his life that he'd forgotten. One of the more recent ones was his little sister's love for chocolate-a treat they'd gotten only a handful of times in their entire lives. Standing by and watching Bunny work on his chocolate like that...

He'd been seventeen and human again, his little sister giggling at his side, watching their mother make chocolate using the special beans her grandmother in France had sent her. It had been a special privilege to have chocolate, Jack knew that most people in the village hadn't had any idea what chocolate even was.

He'd just wanted to help.

But that had backfired, of course. After all, he made a mess of everything, didn't he? Ten years later, and Pitch's words still rang with some truth. Ten years later, and while they weren't obviously friends or anything, Bunny still seemed just out of his reach. They'd been getting closer, but he'd just had to go and screw that up a few months ago.

He'd just wanted to know more about Bunny. What were you like as a child? Who were your parents? What are Pooka like? Where were the rest of the Pooka? A few questions, asked in innocent curiosity, shouldn't have hurt any. But they had. Bunny had thrown him out of the Warren so fast Jack should have had skid marks on his behind.

He'd gone to North after that, upset and not understanding, and North had explained. Bunny's people were long gone. Bunny was the last.

He hadn't known. He hadn't known. No one had told him! He'd just wanted to know more about Bunny! He'd just wanted--!

But that didn't matter now, did it? Bunny had rigorously ignored him for those following months, and no matter how much North reassured Jack that Bunny would get over it once he'd had time to think it through, Jack still knew it would be a long time before he'd make any sort of new progress in their relationship.

Jack pursed his lips tight and knocked over a few more icicles. Relationship. Now he was just kidding himself. Ten years he'd worked, trying to mend old hurts. Yes, he'd caused that Blizzard in '68. Yes, he'd been manipulated by Pitch in 2012 and left them open for Easter to be destroyed. But hadn't he made up for that? He'd helped with Easter every year after that. He'd worked himself a nice little niche in the group slowly, patiently. They'd become his best friends and closest confidants, and even felt a bit like a family, even if it wasn't quite the type of family he'd always longed for.