Thoughts of a Cabin

By Uniasus

Jack had once called the houses of the other Guardians hide-outs. He had seen them as places where the Big Four hung out at instead of interacting with children, sequestering themselves from the world and other spirits. But now he knew a bit more, they were the locations that made things possible. Toy workshops and dye rivers and memories chests.

He didn't have a holiday to prepare for, and had nothing he needed to store, so the nomadic life suited him well. Flying from one town to another, sleeping in caves and trees and snowbanks. Jack always assumed Sandy was the same way, there was never a time it wasn't night on Earth, but apparently the little guy had a house too. Children didn't get good dreams every night, Sandy needed a break, and he took it in a sand ship in the sky whose orbit matched that of the sun, hiding it from view of those on Earth.

The one thing each house had was a Globe and warning system. "We don't see each other often," North admitted. "Too busy, but we all need way to sound alarm and watch over children. The yetis are making you Globe Jack, where do you want it?"

And thus came the questions of where did he live and what was him home like.

Jack didn't have the heart to say it to their faces that he didn't technically have one.

That is, until he threw himself into the wind with the words "take me home!" and he found himself hovering over Burgess and then the pond nearby.

Gently, the wind set him down and Jack stared at the water. He had his memories now, this pond was not just where he was born as a guardian spirit, but also where he died as a human. His coffin, his home.

He wondered what that said about him.

Jack forced his staff into the soft ground, it was getting into spring here, and hopped up to perch on the hook to think. "Where would I even put the Globe? Underwater?"

"They made you an official Guardian then, I take it."

Jack jumped off his staff and whirled around to see Pitch Black standing a few feet behind him. The Guardian pulled his staff from the ground and aimed it at his unexpected guest in a two handed grip.

"I have to say, I'm surprised."

Jack didn't answer, knowing full well that it was really the Moon's, and his, doing he was a Guardian rather than North's or any of the others. As the silence settled, Pitch sighed and began to circle Jack, keeping the same distance, until he too stood at the edge of the pond. The fear spirit bent at the hips and looked into the water. "Deep enough to drown in, but I don't think putting a Globe down there would work well. What about the South Pole? You're familiar with it."

Jack lowered his staff. It seemed Pitch didn't want a fight, which was good for him because even if Jack's powers were at a seasonal low the Guardian would win, but just talking to someone didn't quite seem like Pitch's thing either. A week ago he had went on and on about understanding Jack's loneliness, maybe he was trying to socialize for a change?

Nah, no way Pitch would change that quickly.

"What do you want?" Jack asked, agitated that his musings had been interrupted.

"How did you do it?" The Boogieman looked towards town. Jack followed his gaze. Jamie lived up there, and all of his first believers.

"Do what?"

"Get them to believe."

Jack wanted to snap back it was his own doing Pitch couldn't get believers, but then he remembered he did have them for awhile and then lost them. Wondered if it hurt more to never have believers, or to have had them and lost. Recalled that Jack himself had tried desperately for three hundred years to get a child to see him to no avail. Pitch had gone much longer, had been more desperate. Jack wondered if he had gone for over a thousand years without a child knowing his name if maybe he would have done something as sinister too.

He wasn't going to stop Pitch from seeking out a less destructive path.

"I don't know. I wasn't even trying to get Jamie to believe in me. He was losing faith in Bunny, so I made a few frost pictures, got a ice rabbit to hop around his room to remind him the Easter Bunny was real. And then Jamie just said my name, turned around, and saw me."

"Is that who you are, the Guardian of Belief?"

Jack snorted. "Moon no. Try joy. Snowballs and snow days and sledding down hills. But I can speak from experience, belief doesn't come from your center."

"It does for me. Fear made those children believe in me all that time ago, and for a short while on Easter."

"But not before then, when you were giving them all nightmares." Jack walked over to the other spirit, stopping just beyond a staff length away.

Pitch didn't say anything, but Jack knew he acknowledged the truth of that statement.

They stood there a bit longer, Jack's mind wondering back to a house to install his Globe in. Pitch had given him the idea of the South Pole, but that really wasn't where he felt like he belonged. No, that was here, at the pond just outside Burgess. It might not be practical, he wasn't even in this area of the world for more than a few months a year, but he was hesitant to give any place else the label of home, even if the South Pole was comfortable year round.

Pitch shifted next to him, crouching down to put a hand on the frost Jack's presence had formed over the pond, never minding the warm weather. It jolted Jack's mind back to their unfinished conversation.

"Maybe the secret is not trying to be believed in."

Pitch snapped his head around to growl at him. "What type of silly idea is that?"

Jack took a step back as Pitch rose to his full height. He knew he could take the Nightmare King in a fight, but that didn't mean the gray scale spirit wasn't scary.

"Well, I mean, there are more important things than being believed in."

"Like what?!"

"The kids. Friends." Because isn't that what he had been thinking about, peeking in through Jamie's window? Preserving Jamie's childhood and magical outlook on life? Helping North and Bunny and Tooth from fading?

His answer seemed to stop Pitch short. The Boogieman receded, no longer leaning into Jack's personal space.

"Don't you have any other priorities than hiding under beds and scaring children?" Jack pressed after a moment.

Pitch seemed to shrink, the shadows that usually surrounded him being sucked up into his coat. "I used to have a family."

"Didn't we all."

Pitch shot him a look Jack couldn't read, but Jack could tell now there was some type of connection between them that wasn't there before. He understood the Boogieman a bit more now, his loneliness and loss. Jack's wounds were being slowly addressed by the Guardians, Pitch's were left unbandaged.

"You used to have a house here. A log cabin."

Jack's mind flew through old memories only recently received. "I did, didn't I? How'd you know that?"

"One of the entrances to my lair isn't that far off. I also developed a hatred for you as a human, your games chased away the fear."

"If you knew me before, why didn't you ever say so?"

Pitch shrugged. "You didn't know me."

"Well, I do now."

"Unfortunately."

"Do you think a log cabin would be able to hold a Globe?"

"Not normally, but talk to the Guardians. They know a fair bit of magic and should be able to help enlarge the inside."

"Thanks."

Pitch looked startled at the statement. "For what?"

"Your help about building a house. When it's done, you can come and say hi. During the winter anyway."

"Fat chance, Frost."

With that, Pitch gathered the shadows to him and disappeared. Jack sighed at his departure. He didn't really like Pitch, but he understood him to a bit. Worried that in another universe he would be similar to the Boogieman.

But he wasn't, because he was a Guardian. Because of Pitch's bid for power. Jack supposed he owned Pitch something for that. A bit of friendship, if Pitch would take it. First though, he needed a house for guests to visit him in.

Jack went for a walk in the woods to find the perfect spot.

A/N: I fell for this movie so hard. Like, watched it everyday of the week hard. I can't believe I didn't watch it for months thinking it was silly. Because I love it. All the way, everyday, and my WIP 50+ page story that's turned into a manifesto for belief proves it.