#4 things

Title from Runaway by AURORA

Happy New Year!

I’m over ten years late to this fandom with no Starbucks and a leaking pen. Welp, better late than never.

Speedran this in about seven hours while waiting for the new years’ fireworks.

Inspired by this post by randomkduck:

XXX

It had been barely a month, only just two weeks, since Pitch was defeated. North, Sandy, and Bunnymund are helping Tooth with collecting teeth. Jack would have been too if he hadn’t been occupied with his own duties of bringing winter to parts of Japan, on the other side of the Earth from them.

The four were passing through a coastal town somewhere on the west coast of the United States when a splotch of blue fabric up in the bare branches of a tree caught their eye.

Closer examination revealed that whatever was up in the tree was not an it but a person.

A very familiar person, who should have been in Japan right now. Yet here he was, fast asleep in a tree ?

“Tha’ cannot be comfortable,” Bunnymund commented.

It really didn’t look like it was comfortable at all. Jack was perched upon a bare, leafless tree branch. He was lying on his side, on a branch that wasn’t all that wide or thick. It didn’t look strong enough to support him. Yet here Jack was, somehow asleep while not breaking what he was sleeping on.

He looked as peaceful as if he was sleeping in the comfiest bed in the world.

Any other person would have already fallen right off the branch, but not Jack. With the way that he had positioned himself, the seemingly specific placement of his arm and opposite ankle wrapped around the branch.

It spoke of something sad, of nights upon nights of experience with this kind of sleeping conditions.

“Come, we go now. Leave Jack to sleep,” North told them. The Guardian of Wonder turned his attention to the town ahead and moved on.

With one last look each, the others joined him. Sandy was the last one to head off. The Guardian of Dreams checked on the winter spirit’s dreams, making sure that he was not having any nightmares. Instead Sandy found neither nightmares nor good dreams, just…nothing.

He blew a small pile of dream-sand in Jack’s direction. Not enough to give him good dreams but enough that Jack would wake feeling well-rested. Once he was satisfied with his work, Sandy followed after the other Guardians.

Toothiana asked Jack about it at the next Guardian meeting two days later.

“How can you sleep in a tree? It can’t be comfortable,” the Guardian of Memories asked. “Have you slept like that before or was it an accident?” she rushed on, not giving him time to answer the first two questions.

“It’s comfortable enough when you’ve spent most nights for the last three-hundred years in similar trees,” Jack answered. He didn’t see the frowns that tugged at the mouths of the others.

Just how many nights had Jack slept up in trees much like the one that they had seen him in three nights’ ago?

XXX

The next time, it was Bunnymund who found Jack. Months later at Easter-time.

The Guardian of Hope was in the middle of hiding the painted eggs when he spotted the immortal teenager. He was fairly easy to spot amongst a field of lush green grass.

The spirit was lying on his back, fast asleep, surrounded by a small circle of frosted-over grass. His powers had reached out and taken hold of the grass that he was lying on.

If Bunnymund didn’t know better, he would have said that Jack had wandered into this field, laid down, and died. He was so still. But he did know better.

This particular field was nowhere near any town or city; nor was it winter here yet. There were three weeks left of autumn here. But Jack had ended up falling asleep in this field.

The pooka hoped it had been accidental, the seasonal spirit had been so tired that he had fallen asleep in the grass here; and not that Jack was as used to sleeping in random grass fields as he was to sleeping in trees.

Despite how he wanted to (not that he’d let Jack himself or the others know that), there wasn’t time for Bunnymund to dwell on it any longer; he had a job to do.

XXX

Another week and another meeting later. North had moved to his workshop, an itch to create had taken him during the meeting.

As the Guardian sanded down his most recent creation, a very faint sound made it to his ears. It was so faint that North almost missed it. Almost.

There was nothing in the workshop that could make a sound like that, he thought as he got up from his seat to go investigate.

Five minutes later, his search had so far been fruitless. It did not make sense.

A thought hit him at the same time that a realisation did. North wasn’t sure if he had seen Jack leave after the meeting had concluded

He looked up, towards the rafters. And there Jack was. The winter spirit was seated high up in a corner, supported by the rafters. Jack was snoring slightly as he slept, that was what he had been hearing.

North chuckled slightly as he turned away and returned to his prior activity. There was no way that he could get Jack down anyway. Not that there was any pressing need to; if he could sleep soundly on a tree branch without falling off, there was no need to worry.

XXX

Sanderson Mansnoozie, the Sandman, or Sandy as he was known by his friends, was on his way through London when the tell-tale inky black tendrils of nightmares caught his attention.

It was not doing anything remotely aggressive, it hadn’t in months. Instead it slipped past Sandy to seek out its unlucky victim.

He followed it to a rooftop. At first he couldn’t see anyone, believing that the nightmares were going down through the chimney into the house. But a closer look showed him something different.

The nightmares weren’t going down into the chimney, instead it was swirling around a person sitting on the sloping tiled roof who had their back resting against the chimney stack.

Concern and worry shot through Sandy as he floated closer.

How had this person gotten on the roof? He hadn’t seen any ladder or steps of any kind. Not to forget just how many of the nightmare wisps were circling them.

The concern and worry were replaced with surprise and confusion when he managed to see the person’s face. It was Jack.

As Sandy called forth enough dream-sand to completely disperse the nightmares, he wondered how Jack had ended up here. Covered in a light layer of soot that had settled on him from the surrounding chimneys.

Jack wasn’t just sitting against the chimney, he was curled-slumped on the part of the roof between the stack and the drainpipe. It looked downright painful . Much like the tree Sandy had seen him sleeping in that one time.

The nightmare turned into two golden penguins and a dolphin. At least Jack’s good dreams were what he expected and not nearly as confusing.