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“Just got a message from Bunny,” Jack said. “Amber's run off again.”
Pitch groaned at the timing. “Onna just told me Rin's in trouble.”
Jack's brow furrowed worriedly. “What kind of trouble?” Pitch's mouth opened, but he closed it as soon as he realized he didn't have a good response. Jack rubbed the back of his head, then said, “I know where Amber is. I'll take care of her.”
Pitch nodded. “Probably best.” Amber was most likely just trailing one of her mother's storms again. She was eager to learn the magic she'd been born with, but was still so young. She was so very young for a Pooka, they aged so slowly.
Rin, on the other hand, was so much older and trapped in a young man's body. One could only imagine what the Nightmare Man had done. It had to be serious for Onna to come to them instead of handling it herself. Rin was more likely to listen to her than to either the Nightmare King or the youngest Guardian.
Letting out an even more aggravated sigh, he reached out with his shadows to locate the Nightmare Man. When he found him, he dove into the dark and headed straight for him.
:)
Rin sat on a snow bank with legs and arms crossed, patterns of his black ice fanning out around him. He still tasted the blood on his tongue, and he still hadn't bothered to wipe the now cool liquid from his chin and neck. Glaring at the cane in his lap, he was traversing a fine line between infuriated and utterly broken. He didn't really know which to lean to, though his actions certainly dipped more toward rage.
He felt something warm staining his cheeks and quickly wiped them away again. When he did, he got some blood on his sleeve. He hissed at the sight, hand dropping to his iron wand. He was tempted to swing it, sending spikes across the snow laden, barren landscape. Instead, he caught himself glaring outward again.
When he felt a much darker presence than his behind him, he snarled. Pulling his hood tighter down over his head, he immediately regretted telling Onna anything. “What have you done?” came Pitch's harsh tone.
“I told her not to tell you,” was Rin's only response.
“She didn't tell us anything. She just said you were in trouble.”
Of fucking course she did. Drawing in tighter, Rin still refused to look at his elder. He heard the Boogeyman shuffling in the snow behind him, but that was the extent of what he could hear over the wind. Rin started when the hood was yanked off his head, spinning around and up onto his feet to shout, “Don't touch me!”
Pitch's gaze turned from annoyed to stunned to enraged in the span of three seconds. “Tell me what you did. RIGHT NOW!”
Rin knew he was glaring specifically at the blood lining Rin's mouth and throat. He made no move to cover it up. “They asked for it. Okay?”
Pitch's voice raised, and his body stiffened. Hands shaking, he screamed, “After all this time, you would go and do this?!”
“You don't even know what I did!” Rin shouted back. Soon, it was a shouting match.
“How many times have I told you—”
“It's not like I went out looking—”
“—to rein in your emotions before engaging—”
“—to get into a fight, okay? I just—”
“—in any confrontation of any kind.”
“—lost my temper. Believe me, they deserved it!”
“You've done so well, for so many years! Why now?!”
“I was upset, okay!”
“What could have possibly driven you so far as to—”
“You still don't know what I did?!”
“Well why don't you enlighten me?!”
“They were a couple of prisoners in America. They weren't sorry at all for what they'd done, so I made them sorry.”
Pitch's back straightened and Rin groaned as he realized the lecture was coming. “When we want to make someone pay, we give them relentless nightmares—”
“Oh jeez, here we go.”
“We do not,” there was a pause for Pitch to compose himself, “kill. We do not harm them physically. We are much more insidious than that.”
“Says the man who pulled the teeth out of two monkeys just for hurting Mommy,” Rin spat, making a mockery of the term he sometimes used for Jack.
Pitch's glare intensified. “That was different.”
“Yeah, and Onna can murder two child molesters and you don't even blink. Meanwhile, you're getting pissed at me for ridding the world of two serial killers slash rapists who were so awful they had to be separated from the other guys for fear of being killed!”
“Onna never killed intentionally. She panicked and couldn't control herself.”
“Well, I was upset!”
“Which brings me back to the question, what could have upset you so terribly as to make you do something you managed to go . . . twenty years without committing?” Before Rin could even fathom answering that question, Pitch pointed at him and commanded, “First, wipe your mouth. I'm tired of looking at the blood.”
“I'll wipe it when I want to!” As Rin spoke, Pitch bent over and scooped up a palm full of snow. Upon finishing the remark, Pitch shoved the white substance into Rin's face roughly and made the Nightmare Man unleash a series of irritated grunts. “Stop!” he said as Pitch proceeded to rub the blood off in a not-so-gentle manner. “Okay, okay!” Rin shoved Pitch back, choosing instead to wipe the blood off on his sleeves. Some of it was frozen on, so it required some additional scrubbing. As he finished the cleaning, he started feeling upset all over again. Rage seeping out, he started looking for ways to dodge what was really bothering him. Instead, he only realized how much he didn't want to talk to Pitch about the subject. “I see Frosty Junk had better things to do,” he remarked under his breath.
“He had to go find one of the twins.”
Rin rolled his eyes. “Probably still mad at me about the hamster incident.”
“I myself am still wondering what possessed you to look at a beloved pet hamster,” the statement was so filled with sarcasm Rin might have cracked a smile any other day, “and think 'I'm going to eat that.'”
“It was staring me down.”
Pitch shook his head. “What upset you?” Rin let out another sigh. “Don't think you can distract me long enough to forget what this is really about. What has you so upset?”
Rin's shoulders sagged as he finished wiping the blood from his face. Teeth clicking as they started to grind, he felt everything he'd felt in the past twenty-four hours all over again so vividly he couldn't bring himself to speak at first. His mouth opened and the words spilled out more than anything else. “Sophie can't see me anymore.” Pitch's face turned to stone. “I . . . flew through Burgess and I,” he exhaled loudly through the nose. “I saw her. Barely recognized her.” He felt himself sinking back down to sit in the snow again as he said, “Before I could say anything, she walked right through me.” It had felt like a piece of himself had been torn out and taken with her. He still felt the emptiness in his bones, the absence in his soul. Or lack of a soul. He still wasn't so sure what he had constituted as a soul. Picking up his cane, which had fallen in the snow upon his standing up, he stared at it sadly. He stared at something in particular written on the side of the cane. When he'd finally stopped aging and began to accept the permanence of his teenage appearance, Sophie had seen fit to draw on the side of his wand in silver Sharpie. There, she and Onna had drawn patterns of what they'd thought his version of frost looked like. Looking at it now, it only reminded him of what he'd lost.
“So this is what made you lose control?” The words were not malicious. They weren't understanding either. They were simply deadpan.
So Rin responded only with a nod, staring forlornly at the patterns on his cane. “Did I stay away too long?” he wondered aloud. “Did I . . . did she . . . ?”
“She didn't forget you.” Pitch's voice was surprisingly reassuring. “She just . . . grew up.”
Rin shook his head. “I didn't think that really meant anything. Or changed anything.”
“Well,” Pitch uttered, “if you want the full version of why adults aren't able to see us, the one to ask would be the Tooth Fairy. On that one truth she and I can agree: it is best they don't see us.”
“I feel like I didn't get enough time. I didn't spend enough time with her.” When he looked up at Pitch, he could see the Boogeyman's face was now as pained as his felt.
“Mortal lives last a mere few minutes when compared to our lives. There is never enough time.”
Rin thought Pitch would lecture him more, but the Boogeyman stopped there. Rin had expected him to be angrier as well, but instead he seemed content to leave the Nightmare Man be. For once, he and Pitch saw eye to eye on the subject at hand. As the Boogeyman squeezed Rin's shoulder momentarily before disappearing again, Rin realized just how completely unprepared he was for this change to come to pass. He should have known it was inevitable. That didn't stop the hurt, though.
:)
“Do I wanna know?” Jack asked.
Pitch had left Rin on his own, allowing the Nightmare Man some privacy despite his concerns for what else he might do. Shaking his head, he instead elected to asked, “Amber is safe?”
Jack nodded. “Exactly where I thought she would be.”
“Sera was concerned?”
“Not as concerned as Bunny.” His gaze shifted to one of concern again. “Is Rin going to be okay?”
Pitch sighed. “It's nothing the likes of us haven't been through. He's got to work through it on his own.”
With that, Jack understood what was happening and questioned no further. Pitch could tell there was a part of him that wanted to check up on Rin himself. Fortunately, he elected not to. Pitch didn't think Rin needed anyone hovering over him for the time being. He needed to reflect.
And as long as Jack didn't catch wind of what Rin had done in the wake of his emotional instability, none of the Guardians would find out either. Rin had gone many years without alerting anyone to any bad behavior he might still possess. Pitch was willing to let this one thing slide given the circumstances.
:)
Rin lingered in the open window of the house, looking in on Sophie's sleeping children. The four-year-old girl looked just like her Uncle Jamie, the toddler the spitting image of his mother. From what Rin had seen of the family, they were happy. They were full of love and hope and all the other things the Guardians sought to bring to a child's heart. Meanwhile, Rin had nothing to give. He had nothing. He wasn't even seen.
He'd been watching them sleep every night since seeing Sophie again, ensuring no nightmares reached them. He wished, more than anything, he could ask Sophie about them. All he knew were their names: Alia and James. He wanted to know more about them. He wanted to talk to her about how she'd been while he was running across countries, sifting through shadows and dancing on ice. He wanted to know that her dreams had been pleasant even while he was away. He wanted to know if the man she'd married was as decent to her as Rin had seen of him.
But he couldn't. He couldn't talk to the one human who hadn't feared him, the one girl other than Onna he'd been close enough to to consider family. It was hard, seeing her there but knowing she couldn't see him. Knowing she couldn't feel him.
In his musings, he had not seen the girl get up out of her bed. He hadn't even heard her move until a toy squeaked under her foot. Jumping slightly, he turned and settled into a pouncing position facing the child. Gripping the windowsill, wand secured in one of his belt loops, he stiffened just as the little girl did as she . . . looked at him.
She was looking at him.
Alia was looking at him.
He stayed frozen, waiting for her to move or say something. Could she? Alia had said little more than a few words whenever he'd been watching. She was only four, after all. Was she . . . was she really looking at him? Was she really seeing him?
There was a smile before she held her hands out to him, stumbling forward slightly before putting her hands on his. He jumped again, everything inside of him grinding to a halt as he realized that yes, she actually was seeing him. His suspicions (hopes) were completely vindicated when she uttered, “Rin.”
He hadn't known his chest could heat to the capacity that it did. He hadn't known he was capable of such a large amount of affection and giddiness until then. “You . . . you know my name?” She didn't answer. Instead, she started pulling on his hands trying to get him to come in. “Okay,” he whispered, unfurling his legs and stepping into the room. He had to stay hunched over so she could continue holding his hands.
She pulled him over to her little brother's bed, letting go only shake James awake. “Jim,” she uttered urgently as she shook him. He awoke quickly, blinking several times to get the sleep out of his eyes. Rin really shouldn't have been surprised that as soon as the kid saw him his eyes widened and he pulled the blankets over his head. “Jim!” Alia muttered, almost chastising him with just his name. “It's Rin,” she explained. Only then did the boy slip out from under his blankets to peer up at Rin again.
As both children settled on the boy's bed in front of Rin, Rin was at a serious loss for words. The two inspected him thoroughly, looking over the claws on his hands and feet and pointing out the patterns on his cane. They spoke in murmurs that he was certain only children of their age understood. He patiently let them look him over, even obeying when Alia tapped his jaw to get him to open his mouth and show them his fangs. James—Jim, really—cringed a little at the sight, but Alia was so fascinated Rin could hardly deny her whims. She'd started playing with his hair when he asked, “How do you know me?” At this point, the question seemed stupid. Everything the children had done had been confirmation that someone had told them stories of him.
There could only be one answer, but he still lit up when Alia and Jim both said, “Mommy,” before they both wrapped their small arms around him. Jim was still a little hesitant, but throughout Alia's inspection he'd grown just as curious and happy to see Rin as she'd been. “She said,” Alia began in broken sentences, “she said,” she squeezed him tighter, “you're our guardian.”
Rin didn't bother correcting her when he heard the 'our' in the statement. As far as he was concerned, yes. Yes he was their guardian. He was specifically their guardian.
He returned the hug, a small smile spreading over his face as yet more tears threatened to prick his eyes. She hadn't forgotten him. Sophie hadn't forgotten him, and she'd instilled a belief in his existence in her children.
After that, he'd come to accept that the only thing constant was change. One thing hadn't changed, though, and that was his affection and devotion to members of the Bennett family. That would never change, no matter how many generations he would watch grow and develop.