Last Winter [JackFrostxReader] Pt.33

Jamie remembered the night his friends and he had fought Pitch in order to protected the weakened Guardians; due to the effects of the children not believing in them, their bodies had lost the magic that had kept them living for centuries and could hardly stand without help from one another. Jack had been unaffected during that time because he was yet to be a Guardian, and although he was much weaker than Pitch, he had stood alone to fight.

It was slightly different now; Jack was stronger than Pitch, but that didn’t mean he had the upper hand. Pitch, after all, had you on his side for only the small portion of the time he needed you to be; ditching you to your luck only to see the reaction of your Guardian of choice and to cause a series of events that would lead you into something Jamie could still not find an answer to. What was Pitch’s reasoning in having you almost drown in the lake? How did he know how your body would react to the sudden submergence, or was he truly planning on murdering you?

With a sigh, he turned around in his chair to look at your sleeping form on his bed. You were covered by three thick blankets up to the chin, wore a long sleeve shirt and one of his sweaters for warmth. His sweatpants had been overly big on you, but it didn’t matter as you weren’t strong enough to be walking around and maybe having them fall to the ground. Your complexion was returning somewhat to its original state, but the shade was different. He thought it was due to the lack of sun as you came from a very hot place with constant sun, so it was only fair to say you lacked the vitamin the sun offered your skin.

He had been keeping a close eye on you since you had fallen into the lake, and an even closer eye when Jack flew back to the North Pole and almost smacked him with his staff for leaving you alone. Jack was arguing something, that was a given, and the main topic of argument at the Pole, as of now, was you. Of course, the Guardian of Fun would say nothing of the arguments specifically, but Jamie knew it had something to do with your current and strange condition and the even stranger events dealing with your human life.

Jamie didn’t need permission from the Guardians to do what he was doing regarding your stay at his home. You had been out for about a week or so, maybe even more because he had been locked up in his room typing away in his computer, missing the next semester of classes, and only leaving his perch to get you food. He had found your sketchbook a day after you fell and it now lay next to his computer on his desk, a page open to reveal a sketch that was not yours, but his; a sketch of yourself when he had fished you out of the water, or more accurately, when you had emerged from the ice with flickering wings too fast for the eyes.

He was still looking at your sleeping form when he flipped to a clean page on the sketchbook and picked up the pencil he had sharped so much it was now smaller than his palm. Jamie began to sketch what he saw, like he had been doing every night, and like every night, your physical appearance changed in the most subtle of ways. Your hair went ink-black for the beginning hours of the night, which fascinated him so much he had to touch it, but that was a bad move as it would wrap around his hand tightly and not let go. He used his pen to color it in the sketch, as well as inking the linings on your body that at the moment were covered up.

The wings he had seen you emerge with had receded into your body, marking your skin with tattoos that had you freaking out the moment you had seen them. He had only seen and touched them once, when he was helping you change sweaters and you had accidently almost pulled your shirt off, too. Unlike your ink-hair, the marks remained on your skin and felt smooth to the touch; no scar like tissue or bumps or anything to give away that it wasn’t part of the body or that it was an unnatural marking. It was your skin, but a different color.

Jamie wasn’t sketching your current position in the bed, he was sketching out everything he had accumulated throughout your stay; the illustration of the work he had done in his computer, which is what he drew. Your body in the Anatomical Position and wearing as little as possible because Jamie thought you wouldn’t take him drawing you nude all that great and would most likely punch him. He needed to draw you facing forward for one reason and one reason only; your dark, multifaceted eyes that were closed at the moment.

He hadn’t wanted to alarm you, but your eyes had yet to return to their normal state and kept that insect-like look you had emerged from the lake with. For the same reason he had kept you from mirrors, but it didn’t seem like you used them much and didn’t notice this action of his. Jack noticed, but he never said anything about them. He knew. Jamie understood that Jack knew more than you and he, what he didn’t understand was why Jack wouldn’t tell you.

The only thing he added to the night’s studies was: rapid eye movement—she’s dreaming.

Turning back to his computer and opening the folder labeled with your name, Jamie read over the facts he had acquired for the past weeks. The series of events leading to your stay at his home were there, separated into different files for easy access to him, and one in particular having a greater content than the other. That particular file was filled with the details you had managed to comfy in him when you were awake and feeling well enough to have small conversations with him. He clicked the file and read the first word he had type: Pitch.

He hadn’t told Jack about your dream because you hadn’t told him about it yourself, and by the looks of how things were, that particular event would never see the light of day with the Guardians. Especially Jack. Jamie wasn’t sure if you meant to keep it from him or perhaps when he was around the nightmare had just slipped your mind. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t his business to spread around what you had told him. Yet.

Things had begun to change slowly from that night on; the fear instilled in you that had never truly existed until that night. When you spoke of that night, Jamie typed it also, was of someone who was still dreaming such things. The way you spoke of it was so vivid that at time he believed you thought it had actually happen, but then the more rational side of you had kicked in and you had disregarded how lucid you were in that dream and that any of that was not a figment of your imagination.

How was it possible for that boy to be Jack? You had asked aloud, but didn’t expect him to answer, which he didn’t. He was at a loss as much as you were because Jack had never really talked much about himself. But, as he spoke to you and your theoretical thoughts came pouring out, he could guess why your life at home had grown strangely unfamiliar.

The trashing of your study: there was one thing missing, something you had thought of as useless and unimportant, because those things never mattered in the least bit. A Journal, or diary, or whatever the people wanted to call it. But unlike others you had revolving on ideas and theories and testing and private thoughts, this one in particular held something new, something different; a story. Not just any story either, but a story that had begun with a young eight year-old and what she believed to be some sort of cliché knight. Because that’s what she grew up with, disliking knights in shining armor, princes, and whatever other things adult tried to sell young girls.

The story was a sweet one because it was written by a child and children almost never lie. They tell truth you never want to hear in the most innocent ways, and in your story, you were no different and clearly wrote how mesmerizing Jack had been and how cruel you had told him off in hopes he would go away. This prince or knight or whatever he was, with his charm and smiles and cuteness, was irritating to you; his appearance alone made your brain a jumble of uncertainties. Not to mention, he wasn’t real.

Jamie knew the story because, gratefully, the journal had arrived at his home before the strange occurrences happened. Sent by your mother with a hand written letter—scariest thing Jamie had ever seen!—that blamed him for everything. Everything that had, and he could still not believe this, sent you to the brink of insanity.

Insanity!

Following the night after Pitch’s nightmare induced visit, thing had begun to spiral under control. He heard it. Heard it from your mother when he had called to tell her you were fine and with him and that she shouldn’t worry. You were safe and as soon as you could stand, he would accompany you home. He had never expected what was waiting for him on the other end, and he was glad Jack had gone to the Pole or else he would have hear your mother’s hysterical yells about how foolish your ‘love’ for him had cost you everything.

For one: the one you loved was Jack not him, but your mother believed you had changed the name ‘Jamie’ to ‘Jack’ so she would never find out about your “affair”. Her accusations came, not to his surprise, with back-up facts that could blame him for everything that had gone wrong in your life. Your mother was so much like you in finding reasonable, believable, explanations for everything that happened, and it was frightening.

When you had first started the story about the boy who walked you to school, who caused the snow, who caused you to get sick for the very first time, was around the time you had first contacted Jamie. Your enthusiasm for snow and ice and the weather in general, was because of that one day. Your attitude, the reason why you kept so many things hidden from her, was because Jamie was influencing you into childish lies. Foolishness, she said, foolishness that couldn’t be easily ignored or easily accepted, and which had led to disastrous results.

This unhealthy curiosity you had developed over something as ridiculous as this Babayka, as you had repeated countless times over the course of the night of the nightmare, and many more nights to come, was eating away at your reality, your sanity. This foolish obsession was a thorough destruction of the scientifically cultivated mind you had been raised to have. Your mind was being killed slowly by irrational thoughts with no solid fundamentals, and the only thing that could now partially be seen in the reflection of your eyes was pain.

This is where everything changed for the worst and it didn’t take Jamie more than a second to piece everything together. He started with the word Babayka, which oddly enough reminded him of the three Baba Yaga you spoke about the Naiads. It wasn’t only the names—okay, maybe it was—but there was something really odd about said name being mention when you yourself had never mentioned it to him. When he had mentioned it to you one night, you hadn’t the slightest clue on what it was or what it meant.

Due to his research, he figured out that the word was the Russian equivalent for the Boogeyman, but even after this explanation, you made it clear that you had never lost your mind and began calling out that weird name. You would have remembered, you explained, but all you could remember was arguing with Pitch and throwing a book at him. This is something that didn’t match up with your mother as she said you spent most of your time sleeping due to medication.

Medication?

That had happened long ago, Jamie couldn’t give an accurate date, but he had known that it had happened either a day before the arrival of the journal, or maybe after it. Your mother sounded worried about you, but not for the same reason Jamie had been worried about you for the past the-moon-only-knows how many day. This prompted him, ignoring that small, panicked voice in the back of his mind, to ask exactly why she wasn’t more hysterical about not having you home, about you having run away.

The other line was silent for the longest of time, the nervousness in him growing into something chilling, and then you mother spoke in a calm, smooth, and clear voice, and Jamie blood turned to ice when she said: ‘My daughter has been in the hospital since last winter. Ruben had her admitted into the hospital a couple of nights after Christmas.’

Jamie had been flipping through your notes, but had closed the book and slammed it on his desk at the thoughts took over his mind. His eyes quickly looked your way, but the sound didn’t seem to wake you, although you did stir, breathing out a sigh of a dozen mist dragonflies that vanished through the window and walls. It was something rather spooky, but he had gotten used to them, especially after the sudden knowledge of those little creatures being nightmare eaters. Yet, and he had typed this in his notes also, the dragonflies seemed to have a harder time eating nightmares you would have in comparison with the children in his block.

He watched you closely, turning his back to you after making sure you weren’t in the brink of sliding into a nightmare. Of course, like when he had fought for the Guardians’ protection, his touch still managed to transform those nightmares into dreams. The only side effect, which he found it hilarious as Jack would make a face, was that after he had changed the nightmares, you would only dream of him. Naturally you dreamt of Jack, but Jamie’s interference sort of messed around with Sandy’s sand and reinvented your dreams.

Jamie mimicked the sigh that escaped your lips seconds after he had sat at the edge of the bed and looked down at you. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to do to help you, and he was sure there was nothing he could actually do to help you out of this predicament. All he had left was to trust in the Guardians to do what was best for you, to trust that Jack would have a much better way to protect you and offer help that he couldn’t. He also trusted you would react calmly, accepting, and maybe not try to against the Guardians. That last one was actually a long shot, because studying everything he had gathered, it seemed more likely that you would cross paths for the worst with them.

He reached his hand towards you, taking a strand of hair in his fingers and pushing it behind you ear. With the back of his hand he stroke your cheek, smiled at the faint pink that painted them, and understood that everything was going to be all right. This was something that had to happen, and, to certain explanations by Jack, it was something that could never have been stopped. It had never been stopped before and it was considered luck you had still been in one piece for this long. Then again, here you were: in his bed, curled up in a ball, fast asleep, and apparently dreaming of a night you had sat beside Jack drinking coffee or hot chocolate. You were alive, and that word now being loosely used.

“It can’t be stopped.”

Jack’s voice startled Jamie, making him jump away from you and clutch both his hands behind his back. Jack didn’t seem upset about his touching you, but for Jamie, it was still really weird to think about someone not a Guardian having a relationship with a Guardian. It blurred the line of reality and fantasy, you, of course, being the link to reality and Jack being the mythological creature that should only exist in books.

“I don’t know what we should do.” Jack murmured, leaning on his staff as he watched you. “She hasn’t woken up this whole day, has she?”

“No.” Jamie answered, walking to stand next to the Guardian. He remembered Jack being taller, but now, standing side to side, he passed Jack with several inches. It wasn’t something to brag about, well, not at the moment. “I called this afternoon. Her mother reluctantly gave me the number, and Ruben answered . . . who knew he was psychiatrist?”
“And?” Jack pressed, wanting the important information. “What’s going on there? Is it the same as the other places you checked?”

Jamie moved back to allow Jack to move towards your head, his hand reaching out to touch your hair and returning it to its original color. It no longer looked like ink had been spilled on your head, but Jack couldn’t keep a hold on it for long as it would soon frost over.

“It’s not really the same—yet.” Jamie answered, “Records have it that she’s there and that has been there since last December. Although conditions are questionable, she does still exist in the hospital . . . . Some files have disappeared, and it took longer for them to remember her name once the call was ending.”

There was a long pause between them, Jack never straying his eyes from you as a sigh escaped you lips. It was something amazing to see, the dragonfly appearing and defrosting the strands Jack’s hand had frozen. Your eyes still seemed to be moving beneath your eyelids, rapidly moving from one side to the other, and then your body moved.  Your head was thrown back, arms filing above your head and onto the pillow, and an uncomfortable moan came from your lips before tightening into a thin line.

“A nightmare?”

“No,” Jamie responded to Jack’s alarmed voice as they watched you, “If it was a nightmare, we would have seen it, but she seems to be having a negative dream. Don’t get to close, she might slap you—”

“Ow!”

“Told you.” Jamie said with a chuckle, your leg having moved and striking Jack on the back of his thighs. “We just need to wake her up gently, or suffer being kicked again—hey, at least she’s gotten strength back in her legs, right?”

“I think she bruised me.”

~*~*~

It hadn’t hurt as much as you thought it would, kicking the side of a wooden bed with enough force to have it flipped over, although it didn’t move from its spot. Your leg had collided with it, or at least if felt like it had, but the impact had a more human feel: soft and bruise-able, which was not the case with you. You hadn’t felt like it had hit the bed at all—heck, it didn’t even look like you had made contact with it.

Currently, you were standing near the bedside to a sick ridden human girl, and although she looked rather familiar, she was quickly losing that familiarity. Eye rimmed with shadows, cheeks sunken in, hair a complete mess, and the aura of someone soon to be dead, or in a dead-like state. The scene caused your insides to churn, your blood to boil, and your temper to rise to unimaginable heights, which was the reason you had kicked the bed in the first place.

You knew it had to be a dream, but everything looked so very extremely real that you could even sense the claustrophobic forming around the room was sinking into your skin. It brought shivers to your body, and nausea, which was ridiculous because in this state you could puke your inside, although you had gave it your best to do so.
On the bed, laid out in a catastrophic state, was you:  eyes closed, skin a sickly color, arms being held come some stupid straight jacket. Was that really necessary? You looked about to fall over dead, how much strength could you possibly have? Not enough to run a comp through your hair, that a given.

It was looking through a mirror, looking down into it and finding yourself in the state of REM. That wasn’t what you looked like, being as asleep that is, you looked tired, restless, maybe even in pain. Not physical. No. You could feel there was something else hurting this dream-you that had nothing to do with your physical state, but no matter how hard you tried to close your eyes and envision yourself to be this girl, you couldn’t. You couldn’t see what was hurting this dream-you, but the woundless surface of your skin vouched for your theory of there being to physical damage. But, of course, the problem dealt with the mind, or else you wouldn’t be in a strait jacket and, no doubt, drugged senseless.

“I don’t think this is the best course to take, Ruben.” Your mother came walking in through the door of the room, Ruben at her side looking all high and sophisticated and annoying pleased with himself. “I don’t want to leave her here alone.”

“She’s not alone.” He answered, giving you mother a quick peck and causing you to gag. Now you really wish you could throw up, because that sickly sweet smile of his was puke worthy, along with his next words. “I’m here for her, and nothing bad is going to happen. We both decided this is the best for here, and she’ll recover quickly. Promise.”

You directed your attention to them, turning fully in their direction to not miss a single thing they did or say.

“I should have known that Jamie boy was a bad influence on her!” Your mother growled, tears in her eyes. “How could I have been so stupid?! The moment that girl began to take secret notes and hiding ridiculous mythological books . . . . I should have put a stop to it the moment I saw it!”

She knew you had been studying Jack? That was new, but not surprising. What was a shock was the fact that she allowed it to continue. But . . . this was just a dream, a figment of imagination, just wishful thinking.

“I sent that boy that notebook of this foolish story she started the day they met.” That peeked your interest. It wasn’t often that you dream your mother speaking about Jack, but how the hell did she find that journal—oh, yeah, she trashed the study. “I wanted him to see the foolishness he created and the effect it had on her. He might have called here and might even come and see here, so please, Ruben, make sure not to leave her alone for a second. Don’t pass any calls of him to her.”

Jack knows how to use a phone?

Ruben came a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Jamie’s calls will be intercepted and noted that it may harm the patient. He won’t speak to her until I say it is all right to speak to her, and until I feel like he is no longer a danger to her state of mind. As for him visiting, I don’t think a college boy has the time to leave Burgess and come out here.”

Jamie?

Jamie?!

She was speaking about Jamie and him being a danger to your state of mind?! Okay, maybe he sometimes made you want to blow your brains out because he was too much of a sweet, Santa-believing goodie-goodie, but he was as much a danger to you as a baby bunny.

So much for wishful thinking, this dream was taking a turn for the worst, and you had just flipped over a small wooden table. The medications spilling onto the floor with a clatter and catching the attention of the adults. Ruben quickly rushed to pick them up, walking through you in the process, you mother doing the same. Your heart beat picked up, your breathing was short and sharp. You could feel the panic rising from within as you tried to take even breaths.

“He lied to me. Said something about, hypothetically, here running away from home and going with him.” Your mother explained, saying it such a way that made it seem like Jamie was giving away your future plans, which not all that off. You had gone to Burgess looking for Jack and ended up in Jamie’s home after all. “He also asked since when she had been admitted here. He acted like she had been in contact with him since Christmas, although I told him she had been here since then. It was like he were trying to convince me he had been with her all this time.”

“But I have been in contact with Jamie all this time.”
Of course, she ignored you and continued speaking with Ruben, telling him about how Jamie even acted sheepishly when he phone. One would think, she said, the boy had her on his bed and was trying to find the correct way to let her family know she had not gone missing. Once again, you yelled out I AM.

“Mom,” you said, standing between her and Ruben, “I’m at Jamie’s place, dead tired, but alive and well—not in vegetable state like here!”

She didn’t listen, kept speaking with Ruben, kept passing through you, and your temper flared. You were angry, but unsure at what or who. Maybe yourself; you were feeling weak because you couldn’t convince her that you were not the person in that bed. You knew you were at Jamie’s place, but this person here was also you, and this scene was beginning to feel less and less like a dream. This was actually happening: you in this bed, you in Jamie’s bed, both were you and both were real and solid and there. But you knew something was completely off, and having people walking through you in this state was turning you into a violent person that was sending files flying in random directions and glass to shattered.

Joy-kill?

Your head ached, and you cringed at the sound of Jack’s voice echoing in your mind that wasn’t helping your state. His voice caused two things; one, absolute joy and warm feeling fluttering in your stomach; and two, a sudden urge to kick him in the shins, which was totally uncalled for.

Joy-kill.

He sounded frantic as your body felt like it was being shaken by an invisible force that were interfering with your nurse scaring homework. He was shaking you, your mind processed, his hands were on your shoulders and he was moving you back and forth. There was another voice arguing with him, Jamie, and he was also pulling you, but away from Jack who was the source of the shaking.

“This is the reason why she wasn’t to cut you open!” Jamie hissed in a whisper, Jack pulling you back towards him and having Jamie pull back. “You’re gonna give her a cold!”
“Her body temperature doesn’t even drop.” Jack argued, something Jamie couldn’t go against. You had already begun to warm and Jack’s touches weren’t affecting you as they once had. “I think she’s waking up.”

Your eyes had begun to flutter at the sound of their voices, your lips tightly shut, but trembling ever so slightly. You wanted to stay with your eyes closed, asleep and not in this world where you would surely know the truth of what was going on. You could already tell that what you saw in your dream was not really a dream at all, and you weren’t sure you were going to take in reality with a smile and accept it. The tears could already be felt rolling down your checks when Jamie had helped you sit up.

“What the hell did he do to me?” You asked, eyes fully open and looking at Jack through warm, salted tears. “What. Did. He. Do.”

Jack looked like he was hurting as much as you, his eyes glazing over before looking down to hide something.

“Jack,” you pleaded.

He still refused to look at you, but he answered. “He did what he always did when a Dragonfly was born. He—he killed you . . .”