Chapter Text
It was just so uncool, in every sense of the word. Before the kids could see him, summer never used to bother Jack this much. He simply flew off to colder haunts, carved rude symbols into undiscovered glaciers, harassed climbers on Everest, buzzed remote snowbound villages, and waited for the temperate lands to open up again. No one back then missed him, anyway. Now, the press of seasons blossomed from a pet peeve into full-blown resentment. All the perks of Guardianship, all the newfound power and confidence and belief in himself, and the world remained crisscrossed with invisible boundaries that liked to change on him just when he started to get comfortable.
A very few times in the early years, Jack had tried valiantly to trespass into places he Shouldn’t. Not shouldn’t, as in, workshop-at-the-North-Pole shouldn’t, but serious, capital-S-mortal-peril Shouldn’t. The North Wind was against him; it would carry him anywhere at a high enough altitude, but the moment he tried to descend too close to the equator, the wind angrily petered out below his feet, threatening to drop him. The same thing happened over other parts of the world during their summer. At such times, if the North Wind had a voice, Jack imagined that it would be yelling at him.
Other experiences taught Jack that fire and heat had effects on him similar to the worst effects of alcohol on humans. Crossing into summer on foot, for example, ended in a bleary-eyed heap on the cold stone floor of a charnel house in a forgotten churchyard, where he waited four shaky, nauseous, miserable days for a break in the weather.
Today, temperatures in the Central and Eastern United States reached new heights, spurring record-breaking electricity usage as everyone with an air conditioner ran that juice-guzzler as if their lives depended on it.
Today, every one of those people whose lives did not, in fact, depend on staying cold spared at least one longing thought for winter.
Today, Jack’s resentment boiled over. He was in exactly the wrong mood—a cocktail of loneliness, boredom, anger, and the dark playfulness that often overtook him at such times. He went looking for a partner in crime.
All of the other Guardians could pretty much go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with varying ease and speed. It was kind of annoying, like Jack was nature’s un-favored child in a family that otherwise had really good genes. Maybe one day, he’d have that kind of freedom. For now, working with them had indirectly given him access to new places—if only he could convince anyone to take him there. Jack was sure neither North nor Toothiana would go along with what he had in mind today. Sandy might have given him a lift, but there was no way he’d want to come down and play, and that was half the point in going. Jack briefly considered asking Bunny… but these days, Bunny was always either weirdly protective over him, or dismissive.
So Jack sought out the one person he knew who hated the summer sun and loved breaking rules as much as he did.
Burgess was locked deep in July, so Jack had to use the secret-not-really-secret back route into the lair (an inexplicably short and direct tunnel hidden near that spiky monument in Antarctica). It was always a treat to see the Bogeyman jump a foot every time Jack dropped out of that particular tunnel. Pitch still clearly hadn’t gotten over Jack finding it in the first place. “Heyyyy, Pitch!”
“Frost.” Pitch composed himself, much like a cat pretending it had meant to slip and fall behind the radiator. “I was on my way out the door. What do you want?”
“Pffft, you’re going to work? No, no. You need to come with me.” Jack leaned on his staff and steepled his fingers charmingly. “Or rather, you need to take us both somewhere. For research purposes.”
Pitch gave him a lopsided look. “Spell out your intentions right now, because that sounded thoroughly terrifying out-of-context.”
“Aw, you’re always so suspicious. Don’t you trust me?” Jack batted his eyes. “I only ever want to play, right? I just need a little help traveling somewhere I can’t get to on my own.”
“Ah, no. I am not your chauffer.”
“Come on, we’ll spar when we get there. There’s this one closed-up parking garage with weird loops and bridges on the roof, it’ll be perfect.”
Pitch hesitated. “I don’t have time for idle play just now,” he said, knowingly or unknowingly inviting Jack to win him over.
Grinning, Jack slunk closer and slid a conspiratorial hand over Pitch’s shoulder. Erasing the touch barrier usually helped. “What if I can guarantee I’ll be afraid?”
“Hmm. What kind, and how badly?” Pitch leaned ever-so-slightly into Jack’s touch, much to Jack’s glee. Gotcha.
He spoke in a low voice directly into Pitch’s ear. “Mortally. Embarrassingly.”
“Oh, really?” Amusement warmed Pitch’s voice. “Well, go on and drop the other shoe, Frost. Where is this magically terrifying parking garage I’m supposed to whisk us off to?”
Jack bit his lip to keep from giggling. “Wait for it: Boston.”
There was a beat.
“Jack, it is high noon in Boston right now.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t even overcast.”
“That’s right.” Jack waggled his eyebrows. “And that’s not all. One hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit,” he drawled, “on the asphalt.”
“You don’t say.”
“Ninety degrees in the shade.”
“Don’t you know what that will do to you? To me?”
“Duh. That’s the point.” He leaned in closer. “What’s the matter? You scared?”
Pitch toyed with a spike of Jack’s hair. “You’re the one in real danger. Suppose I up and leave you there?”
Jack tipped his chin impishly. “You could do that, yeah. And bring down everybody’s wrath, and lose your favorite playmate, and get a reputation for running away from a challenge…” He smirked up at Pitch with hooded eyes.
“It would still be a dreadful experience for you.”
“Mmmhm. It sure would.”
Pitch’s grin widened. “This is a terrible idea.”
“The worst. No, wait, it’s not the worst yet,” Jack said, holding up a hand. “How about we go all out and say whoever asks to go back first loses?”
“What happens to the loser?”
“I dunno. I think we just lose. Between the two of us, isn’t that bad enough?”
Pitch tapped his lip in thought. “We might say that the loser owes the winner something unspecified to be claimed later.”
“Now that,” said Jack, “is a terrible idea.”