Chapter Text
The Guardians… of course the idiot Guardians!
They had ignored Jack for three hundred years (except Bunny, who on occasion was more than happy to exchange a few insults with him here and there) and now the Man in the Moon told them he was going to be a Guardian too! He didn’t want to be a Guardian! He had his own plans for his life and they had very little to do with hanging out with these four weirdos, although admittedly Sandy was kinda cool. The rest were just… ‘Out of touch’ with the rest of the world.
Which is probably why they think that kidnapping a guy and then trying to force him to become a Guardian was a normal thing to do. Little did they know, said kidnappee, was also married. To an ancient incredibly powerful spirit with possessive tendencies and some overly protective instincts. Said kidnappee also happened to be pregnant, and his husband had become even more possessive and protective in wake of this.
When Pitch caught up to the Guardians things were going to get… dark. And nightmare-y.
Jack was pretty sure they had no idea about his relationship with the Nightmare King. Likely because they’d never asked. He wouldn’t have lied to them if they did but he might have started some very creative truth telling. They were all standing around a glowing globe going on about kids and lights and how much of a threat his husband was and Jack was starting to get the idea that he was in more of a dangerous situation then he’d thought he was.
The Guardians were trying to get him to join their group to fight against his husband. Only they had no idea that Pitch and Jack were married. They also had no idea that Jack was pregnant. He wasn’t really starting to show yet, he was only two months in. This situation could turn very dangerous for him, very fast. He fought the urge to put a protective hand on his stomach.
Jack knew a couple of things for sure. He needed to get out of this situation NOW, and Pitch wasn’t trying to take over the world no matter what their precious moon told them.
Pitch was too busy looking after Jack and preparing for their growing family to have time to take over the world. Yes, he’d made a couple NightMares from Sandy’s dreams but he was the Nightmare King so what did they expect him to do? He had no choice. He lived off fear. He hadn’t been able to go out and do his job himself because the Nightmare King had been too preoccupied taking care of his pregnant spouse. People needed fear, especially children. There would be no sense of self-preservation if there was no fear of the consequences. Speaking of self-preservation Jack was feeling it right now. He needed to get out of here.
Of course before he even had chance, Bunny almost made him cry (stupid pregnant hormones), North bundled him along and cornered him alone in a room (cool to see the workshop but if Pitch heard that North locked Jack alone in a room with him…) and he was stuffed into a sleigh headed to the Tooth Palace. The only reason he decided to go was because it was likely Pitch trying to find him.
Jack was not disappointed.
The others rushed to comfort Toothianna and Jack was finally left alone. The shadows around him darkened and he let out a long relieved breath and finally placed a calming hand on his stomach.
“Jack!” And then he was in his husband’s arms.
“Pitch.” Jack breathed in deeply, Pitch always smelled like ash and smoke but Jack loved it. To him, Pitch smelled like home. The sheer mind numbing relief of being in his husband’s arms almost overwhelmed him and he could feel tears pooling in his eyes. “Pitch.” He says again but his voice is deeper, strained with emotion and need. Jack didn’t realize how frightened he was until now.
Pitch pulls back and grabbing Jack’s chin gently he looks Jack over, checking for injuries, “Did they hurt you Jack? Are you alright?” When their eyes finally meet and Pitch notices Jack’s tears the Nightmare King snarls and glares up at the Guardians who are all standing shocked on a platform above them. “How dare you.” The entire castle darkens and Pitch’s shadow grows incredibly large. The temperature drops and there’s menace in the air.
“How dare we?” Bunnymund steps forward before leaping down to their level. “How dare we? Jack are you out of your bleeding mind?!”
Jack flinches back when Bunny yells, seeking comfort behind his husband, enough to feel secure but not enough to block his view of the Guardians. If he wasn’t pregnant, he wouldn’t seek protection so shamelessly but it wasn’t just himself he was protecting. Their child would always come first.
“You’re with the enemy! The guy who’s trying to harm all the children in the entire world! The man who singlehandedly destroyed my entire race! There couldn’t be a more evil-?!” Bunny’s practically screaming but is soon interrupted by Pitch.
“You call me evil? You are the ones who kidnapped my pregnant wife! I made no move against you, it is you who have sought out confrontation with me!”
“Jack’s pregnant!?”
“You’re married!?”
“Not possible!”
“That’s right! Some Guardians you are! Do you even know what that kind of stress could do to him?!” Pitch is absolutely livid. Jack hasn’t seen Pitch this furious since Easter of 1968. “Kidnapping the fairies wasn’t nearly enough, I should kill you all for what you’ve done to him!”
Now that might be going just a little too far. Jack takes a step back from his husband and crosses his arms across his chest. Pitch finally looks back at his wife. “Pitch.” Pitch’s undivided attention is now on Jack. He knows this tone of voice and even the Nightmare King can’t help but swallow slightly nervously when his wife’s voice drops down to such an icy level. “Return the fairies. Now.”
Pitch opens his mouth to argue. He really wants to argue but the look in Jack’s eyes stops him in his tracks. His wife was formidable at the best of times but now that he was pregnant… well… Pitch was a strong eternal spirit who had a healthy respect for his own well-being. He would not argue with his pregnant wife if he could avoid it. “Fine.” He spat. Throwing it a grumpy glare that they both knew he didn’t mean.
He snapped his fingers and the shadows around them rose quickly before falling away, revealing all of the tooth fairies, dazed but otherwise unharmed.
“My fairies!” Toothiana was with them in an instant and the little fairies cooed cutely when they saw their mother. All except one. The little fairy dubbed ‘Baby-Tooth’ whom Jack had saved from a Nightmare.
She was older than her siblings. When Jack had first brought her back she had immediately flown to her mother’s side but now, after hearing everything that had transpired she once more flew over to Jack. She didn’t understand everything that was going on, but it seemed quite clear to Baby-Tooth that her mother and her friends had done something very wrong. Kidnapping was wrong. Pitch had every right to be mad at the Guardians.
Baby-Tooth flew over to Jack who seemed surprised but happy that she came over. She twittered and gestured down to his stomach.
Jack laughed. “Yes, Pitch and I are going to have a baby.” The love in his eyes and the happiness in his voice… Baby-Tooth made up her mind as she decided to stay by Jack’s side.
Even Pitch graced them both with a tight smile. “Finally someone in this menagerie sees sense.” He muttered. His expression seemed grim to everyone else but Jack could tell that Pitch was actually quite surprised by the little fairy, and in a good way.
Toothianna looked over at her eldest daughter, "Little one?” but Baby-Tooth shook her head.
No mother. I am Baby-Tooth, and you were wrong. You kidnapped a pregnant person. That is wrong. The little fairy chirped at her mother before settling down on Jack’s shoulder with her tiny arms crossed.
The Tooth fairy had the decency to look guilty. Sandy was signing his apologies and North may have been blushing under his beard. The Easter Bunny, however, was not going to let this slide quite so easily.
“What is wrong with you people?! This is Pitch we’re talking to!” He stepped up to Jack’s husband. “The Nightmare King! The Space Pirate! The traitor who turned on the royal family! The monster who slaughtered millions of my people just because he could! He’s a genocidal maniac who doesn’t deserve a family!” By the end Bunny was screaming, his eyes like green fire as he glared at the man he hated more than any other. The many who had taken his people, his family, his wife… his child.
Pitch glanced at Jack. His face was as impassive as always, drawn up in one of his trademark sneers. But Jack recognized it at once for what it was. Pitch was hurt by Bunny’s words and more than just a little. His husband’s past was no secret to Jack. Pitch had been having nightmares for years as he slowly came to his senses and remembered what he had done. What the Nightmare King had done. He remembered who he was as Kozmotis Pitchiner, he remembered the family he too had lost, but he also remembered the countless lives lost at his hands. He was no longer Kozmotis but neither was he entirely the Nightmare King. While he drew up his haughty indifference like a cloak to fool the Guardians, Jack could see right through him. See the way Bunny’s words cut him right to the core.
“Enough!” Jack screamed as he slammed his staff to the ground, icicles bristling out of the ground around him. The Wind picked up in her acknowledgement of Jack’s fury. He turned his iced over glare to Bunnymund. “You! How dare you?!” He spat at the Pooka, echoing his husband’s earlier words as well as his earlier fury. He stepped around his husband and right into Bunny’s personal space.
He had to look up at the taller male but with his eyes and staff glowing menacingly it was Bunny who took an involuntary step back.
“You accuse him of betrayal but the way I see it you all betrayed him!” Bunny scoffed and opened his mouth but Jack froze his mouth shut with a twitch of his staff. “No don’t you dare. I had to listen to you scream at my husband, I had to put up with you insulting me back at the Pole, I had to put up with being scared out of my mind while being kidnapped by you lunatics, now you will listen to me.” Jack was no longer yelling. His voice was quite but steady. Calm but colder than the ice that had formed around him as he spoke. The tooth palace was always warm and it was currently summer here, but Jack’s ice was not melting. “The idiot Lunanoffs left Kozmotis to guard the shadows, alone. Kozmotis stayed loyal and true for years as the shadows tormented him, alone. Years passed while they threatened him and whispered in his mind while the rest of you forgot him. ‘Oh Kozmotis is the greatest knight guarding the greatest prisoner, lets never think about them again’ while he was enduring intense psychological trauma. All. On. His. Own. He didn’t break for almost a decade but he was there without a moment of rest and the one thing that finally broke him was something that would break any man, even yourself.” Jack floated off the ground slightly so he met Bunny at eye level. “They threatened his daughter. They imitated her screams.” Pitch flinched slightly behind Jack, remembering. “He did what any father would do. He tried to save her.”
Bunny ripped the ice off of his mouth and glared back down at Jack. “So that excuses him for wiping out my entire race? I am the only one left because of him-?!” Jack cut him off with a fingertip lightly touching his lips.
Jack smiled sweetly but his eyes were still cold. “Not the only one.” A light shone brightly and Jack's skin seemed to stretch and change. His hands grew larger but his fingers became shorter. His ears grew longer and moved further up his head while his face seemed to become longer. His snow white hair seemed to spread down his body and with a ripping sound his pants fell to pieces. In a manner of seconds, a pure white bunny stood tall in front of Bunnymund. A slender frost Pooka from a long extinct race.