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"Oh, this is rich," Jack laughs as he kneels on the tip of his staff, watching the warrior eggs fuss with the "mysteriously" frozen eggs in the Pile of the Unpainted. He had frozen them together for a laugh. He's hiding, of course. He knows he won't get away with it if he gets caught.

"Froooostbiiiite!"

"Uh oh," Jack whispers as he scrambles to get back to the entrance tunnels without being seen. But he's no match for Bunnymund's ears. He is caught before he makes it halfway.

"Why? Why in all the hells would ya do that?!" the Pooka fumes.

"Heheh... Do what?" Jack plays innocent.

It doesn't work. Bunny grabs Jack's collar and starts dragging him back to the pile.

"That, ya drongo!" Bunny exclaims, his Australian drawl more pronounced than ever in his anger. He is, of course, pointing at the frozen eggs, which the warrior eggs are still trying to remedy. "You KNOW how much bloody difficult work I do the weeks before Easter!"

"Oh, come on. It's just a little prank. The warrior eggs are funny when they're like this."

"You stupid-" Bunny pauses, trying to collect himself. When he is ready, he continues. "You know, you're only even allowed in the Warren because I felt bad that you don't have a home on that damn lake."

"Hey, come on. Chill out," Jack replies with a chuckle at his own joke. "If you miss Easter, you might turn back into that adorable little bunny again."

If looks could kill, Jack would be dying a very slow and extremely painful death at the moment. But Bunnymund says nothing and turns to the pile, setting about breaking the eggs apart without hurting them. Despite himself, Jack feels guilty.

"Okay, your right. That was messed up. Sorry," he says gently. Bunny grunts quietly but otherwise remains indifferent to Jack. Jack can't figure out why this bothers him. "You know what you need? You need to learn how to have fun."

"I don't have time for fun," the rabbit mutters. "Easter's in four weeks."

"Hmmmm..." Jack mumbles quietly to himself as he leaves Bunnymund to his business. What Bunnymund would have liked to know, however, is that Jack was pondering now. This overgrown bunny needed some fun in his life.

? ? ?

A few days have passed. Bunnymund has more or less gotten over Jack's little stunt and Jack has been careful not to cause Bunny any trouble, for reasons he's not entirely sure of himself. But that's about to change.

Bunny is, as to be expected, painting an egg in a clearing in the Warren. Jack, strangely, is nowhere to be found. Bunnymund knows he should be worried about that, but he is too focused on his work to spend any time worrying about where Jack is.

He probably should have.

Just as he sets down a finished egg, Bunny is shrouded in darkness. It takes him a moment to realize he has been blindfolded. Before he can react though, his forepaws have been bound.

"Wh- what the hell is going on?!"

"Relax. You need to have some fun. So that's what's going to happen," Jack's unmistakable voice replies.

"And your idea of me having fun is blindfolding me and tying my paws together?! Snowflake, you're dead, do you hear me?!"

"Oh shut up, we're not at the fun yet." Jack grabs Bunny around the middle and starts leading him. Bunny knows the Warren so well that he can tell they are heading to the tunnels. "Hmm... Ah! That's the one!"

"Alright, whacker, where the hell are you taking me?" Bunny asks, more annoyed than scared now. He would have made a tunnel and left through it, but with no vision and no way to untie his paws, it would have been useless.

"To fun," he replies as he leads the rabbit into the tunnel he had chosen. After a few minutes of walking, they come to the tunnel's exit. The feeling of snow on Bunnymund's paws does nothing to make him happier. Jack leads him on for a few more minutes, unties his paws, and takes the blindfold off the Pooka's eyes. It takes a minute for Bunny's eyes to adjust, but when they do, he sees Jack leaning against his staff on a pile of snow.

"... I'm going back to the Warren. I have too much work to do to deal with this."

"No, no." Jack scolds, grabbing his staff and flying in front of Bunnymund. "You aren't allowed to leave until you have fun."

"Oh, really? And what kind of fun could I possibly have in a bunch of snow?"

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe..." Jack gets off his staff and taps it against the ground a couple times. "Something like this?" As he speaks, a pile of snow starts forming and then shapes itself into a perfect likeness of the bunny.

"That looks nothing like me," the rabbit says, turning away, irritated.

"Really? I thought I did a pretty good job. How about now?" When Bunnymund looked back, the snow-bunny had come to life and started hopping towards Bunnymund, fast.

"Hey, hey, hey! You know I don't like this sort of thing, snowflake!" Bunny turns and starts hopping away from the snow-him. But Jack doesn't do anything to help him. He just laughs. Eventually, the snow-rabbit loses steam and falls into a heap of unidentifiable snow. Bunnymund hops back up to Jack, panting.

"Remember when I said you were dead, frosty? Now's that time," the bunny catches his breath and starts walking towards Jack. But Jack is on his staff and in the air before Bunny can even do anything.

"Come on, now, cottontail. If you can't have some fun on your own, I'll make you have fun. I don't want to, but I'll do it if I have to."

"Oh, shut up, Frost," Bunnymund replies, walking back toward the tunnel.

"Well, I warned you," Jack shrugs and makes one of his special snowballs, and throws it at the bunny. As usual, it makes contact. Jack's aim is impeccable.

Unfortunately (at least in the bunny's eyes) it was impossible to resist the magic of the snowball. Despite himself, he turns to Jack and starts laughing.

"That's it, Frostbite," he says through his laughs. "I'll kill you just as soon as this wears off." With that, he starts making snowballs and throwing them at Jack.

"Now that's more like it!" Jack exclaimed happily. He starts making his own snowballs and the two are soon laughing and covered in snow from head to toe. They fall down in the snow next to each other.

"Haha, alright, you've had your fun. You can go back to work now, fluffy," Jack pants, tapping Bunny's arm as he talks.

"Not quite, Frosty. Now we're going to my territory," Bunnymund replies. As he talks, Bunny puts Jack on his back, piggy-back style. When ?Jack is situated, he makes a new tunnel and starts hopping down it. Jack is surprised, but not disappointed. He's happy (perhaps happier than he would normally be but he can't figure out why) that his fluffy friend is finally having some actual fun.

As the two reach the end of the tunnel, it opens into a lush, green forest. As they get out, Bunny drops Jack and starts hopping around, coming to rest on a tree branch.

"Now the ball's in my court, Snowy," he says excitedly.

"Really? I bet I could still beat you in a race here, Kangaroo," Jack replies cockily.

"Tsk, tsk. What did I tell you about racing a rabbit, mate? But okay," he turns and points eastward. "The end of the forest is about 2 miles that way. First there wins."

"Haha, alrighty then. 3-2-1-GO!" Jack takes off with that as his only warning. Caught by surprise, Bunnymund hesitates before taking off through the tree branches.

"Why you little cheater!" he laughs. True to his word, the bunny quickly catches up to Jack, who has to constantly swerve out of the way of tree trunks. Jack knows he's going to lose at this rate. So he uses the only thing in his disposal: He sends a small gust of winter wind at the hopping rabbit. He's knocked off balance for a second, but quickly recovers.

"Oh, it's on now!" Bunnymund laughs as he takes an egg bomb and throws it ahead of Jack. It explodes in a cloud of colored smoke, blinding Jack for a second. He recovers in time to swerve around a tree.

After about a mile of this, and Bunny is still winning, Jack starts freezing a couple of branches here and there in front of the rabbit. He can usually avoid them by hopping onto a different branch, however.

But then he lands on one.

"Aaagh," Bunny shortly exclaims as he starts falling, but his momentum keeps him going forward on that branch, toward the trunk. A sickening crunch is heard as he collides with the trunk. Then he starts falling.

"Bunny!" Jack turns and watches his friend as he hurtles toward the ground. The Earth rushes up to meet Bunnymund with a loud thud.

Before Jack can turn around to go back to his friend, he also collides with a trunk. His staff flies off and Jack slides down the trunk, mostly okay but he'll have a few bruises later.

"Bunny!!" he repeats, running towards his fallen friend. The rabbit is lying on his stomach, so Jack rolls him over to assess the damage. The first thing he notices is the bunny's right foot sticking out at an angle it definitely shouldn't be. "Bunny..." Jack says quietly.

He starts trying to wake up his pal.

"Bunnymund! Wake up! You have to..." Tears start pooling in his eyes as he realizes that his friend is out cold. "Okay... okay... umm... I... I need to... Set his foot! That's right! Umm... splint..." Jack starts looking around and finds some suitable sticks and a vine he can use.

After everything is ready, Jack gingerly takes his friends foot and sets it right, then puts the splint on it. After he's sure his friend's will be fine after it heals, and it won't heal crooked, he gets in a ball next to the rabbit. He's so guilty, he's sure he won't get any sleep, but he lies down anyway. Surprisingly (to him), he falls asleep almost immediately, he had worn himself out so much.

? ? ?

The first thing Bunnymund feels when he comes to is an awful pounding in his head. After a few minutes, he is able to shield his eyes enough to open them.

"Wha happen..." he slurs, looking down at himself, but his vision is obstructed by wall of white hair on his chest. His face grows hot as he blushes under his fur, a pink tinge showing up on his white cheek-fur. He gently moves Jack's head off his chest and tries to get up.

Searing pain shoots through his leg and he howls. Jack immediately wakes up and starts scrambling around, tying to right himself.

"No, no, no! Don't move, Bunny!" Jack fusses over the Pooka. He starts applying pressure to different parts of Bunnymund's body with his palms, asking if they hurt. The bunny blushes.

"J-just stop. None of them hurt, just my head and my leg, Snowflake." Jack sees the pink tinge on Bunny's cheeks and jumps back, a blue tinge creeping into his own as he frosts.

"Are you sure? You don't need anything else right now?" Jack asks in a surprisingly motherly tone.

"Ummm... no, mate," the rabbit replies. But his stomach betrays him.

"Oh! Don't worry. Just wait here, I'll find some food!" Jack runs off, leaving the bunny lying on the forest floor. A few minutes pass, in which Bunny's sensitive ears can hear loud stumbling through the forest. He finds himself smiling at the thought, but he doesn't quite know why.

"Okay, I'm back!" Jack rushes to Bunnymund, his arms full of various colorful things. Immediately, the rabbit identifies half of them as inedible. When he tells Jack of this, the boy drops all of the inedible ones. "Well, I still have these. I found these berries, and this thing was hanging on a tree and I thought it looked like a fruit so I grabbed a few. Then I have these mushrooms. Okay, you need to eat."

"Help me lean against a tree first, mate." When Jack has him against a tree, having done so as gently as possible, he holds out the food to the rabbit. Bunnymund grabs one of the "mystery fruits" and starts eating it. He knows it's edible, from experience, he just doesn't really know what it is. But eating with Jack just watching him makes him a little uncomfortable, and his blush shows it. "You need to eat to, Frostbite."

"Oh. Right," the boy replies, just now realizing how hungry he is. He had been to focused on his friend to notice it before.

When they had both eaten their fill, they both lean against the tree. Eventually, Bunnymund breaks the silence.

"I have a question. Why haven't you just gone to get one of the others or something by now?" Jack frosts in embarrassment at the question.

"I lost my staff," he mumbles.

"You what?! Well, that's just great."

"I'm sorry," Jack looks at the ground and twiddles his thumbs. For some reason, Bunnymund can't make himself be angry at the white-haired boy.

"It's fine," he sighs. "It's not like you chose to lose it."

They sit in silence for a little while, until the silence is broken again. This time it is Jack who breaks it.

"So... what now?" he asks. "We can't exactly use smoke signals."

"You're right," Bunnymund responds solemnly. "I guess we'll just have to wait unti-..." he stopped.

"What? What's wrong?" Jack asks, getting worried.

"Easter's in three weeks! We can't just wait!" Bunny starts trying to get up, attempting to ignore the pain in his leg.

"No! You need to rest so your leg can get better! We may heal faster than normal, but not that fast!" Jack forces his friend back into a sitting position.

"But-" the Pooka begins.

"No buts! You need to rest. We'll figure something out. I promise." Bunnymund knows he has lost. There is just no getting around it. He won't be able to walk, at least not without some kind of support, for a few days, at least. And with Jack's staff missing, it would be pointless anyway.

"Fine," he replies begrudgingly.

They sit in more silence for a while but soon Jack lets out a sob. Tears are streaming down his face.

"I'm so sorry, Bunnymund. This is all my fault." Bunnymund agrees wholeheartedly. If Jack hadn't interfered, everything would be fine. But, for some reason, he can't stand seeing Jack like this.

"No, you didn't mean for any of this to happen. You were trying to help me," the rabbit responds consolingly. Jack looks at him and Bunnymund finds himself wiping the tears off Jack's face. "Now dry those eyes. The important thing now is finding your staff so we can get out of here. I obviously can't tunnel like this." Jack sniffles, but soon is smiling at his friend, puffy eyes being the only evidence he had cried at all.

"You're right. I'm gonna go try to find my staff. You wait here."

"No, mate. I'm coming to help you." Bunnymund can't figure out what had made him say it. Normally, he would have left Jack to do it himself.

"But you can't walk like that," Jack starts fussing over Bunnymund again.

"Like hell I can't. Get me a walking stick. I can do it." Jack almost says no. But he is craving Bunnymund's company, for some reason. He can't deny the request.

"Alright. I'll get you a walking stick. But you have to take it easy." Jack leaves for a few seconds until he finds a suitable stick. When he gives it to Bunnymund, the Pooka slowly starts getting up, using it to keep the wait off his hurt foot. Eventually, he is upright.

"See, mate? What did I tell ya?" Bunny tries to take a step, but his head starts swimming as soon as he moves his foot, and he falls into Jack's arms. Jack frosts and Bunnymund blushes.

"Nope. You're staying here, and I'm not leaving you." He says as he starts lowering his friend to the ground. Eventually, Jack is sitting cross-legged with the rabbit's head in his lap. This does nothing to help their collective embarrassment.

"I guess we really are going to have to wait here until I can walk, eh, mate?" Bunnymund looks up at Jack, the pink tinge in his cheek-fur only growing strong as his head moves against Jack's lap. Which also does absolutely nothing to soothe Jack's frost, either.

"Yeah. But I think I'm okay with that," Jack mumbled, looking into the bunny's eyes. Bunny didn't quite know why, but he was okay with it, too.

"Right. We'll figure something out for Easter." The Pooka's voice drifts off as he falls to sleep in Jack's lap. Jack notices and starts petting him, looking up at the sky every now and then, but mostly staring down at the bunny.

? ? ?

And so the days passed. They had bonded much more than they expected to over the days. Jack would go get food every now and then, but they mostly just sat, talking. Thanks to the magic of the Guardians, Bunny was able to walk in a few days. But he still needed to use a walking stick to support his weight.

"Great. Now we can go look for your staff," the rabbit said as he leaned against his stick.

"Yeah." Jack smiled at his friend. But now, calling him friend didn't feel right anymore. But he didn't want to dwell on that right now. "I think I lost it somewhere over he-" he was cut off by the sound of bells.

"HO! HO! HO!"

"North!" both Jack and Bunny exclaimed. The sleigh came to rest in front of them, and North jumped out, walking over to the two.

"So zis is vhere you have been all zis time!" the fat man exclaimed in his trademark Russian accent. "Vhat have you been doing all zis time?"

It took Jack a while to explain, with Bunny filling in the gaps here and there. When Jack got to the part about losing his staff, North assured him that he would have the elves retrieve it, so the two of them can go on to the Warren. He throws down a snow globe and a portal to the Warren appears.

"Go now! Zere are onle two veeks until Easter!"

"Crikey!" Bunny exclaims and rushes into the portal.

"Thanks, North," Jack says before following Bunnymund.

When he gets into the Warren, he finds Bunnymund giving orders to all the warrior eggs.

"Bunny," he says. But he gets no response because Bunnymund is absolutely frantic. "Bunny!" The rabbit finally stops and looks at Jack.

"What, Jack? I have two weeks until Easter and there's no way I'll be ready in time, at this rate.

"That's why I need to talk to you. I'll help."

"Yo - You'll help?! Ha! That's a-" he stops. After all they had been through in the last few days, he couldn't help but trust the boy."Alright, here's what I need you to do."

He started giving orders here and there, and they both worked practically nonstop until Easter.

? ? ?

"Dammit!" Bunny yells. Easter's about to start and he still can't move fast enough to get all of the eggs hidden. With Jack's help, they managed to get enough eggs made, but it would be useless unless they could be hidden.

"What?" Jack flies over to Bunny. He had gotten his staff back a few hours after they got back to the Warren. "What's wrong?" When Bunny explained the problem, Jack pondered for a minute.

"I'll help with this, too! I can get half while you get the other half! We might even be done faster than usual!"

"Uhhh..." Bunny paused and thought. He really didn't like having other people hide the eggs, even if he had bonded with Jack like this. But he didn't have much choice. "Oh, alright. But be careful."

"I will."

With that, they both set about hiding the eggs all around the world. As Jack predicted, they were actually done faster than normal. Jack was able to use his wind to hide eggs much faster than if he had done it by hand.

And so, Easter went off without a hitch and the two met up again in the Warren. Bunny collapsed on is bed.

"Ugh, that more exhausting than ever."

"But we did good," Jack said in response, floating just over the bed on his staff.

"Yeah," Bunnymund paused. "Come here Jack. I need to properly thank you for your help." Jack got onto the bed, but didn't want to be thanked.

"You don't need to thank me. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place."

"That may be," Bunny replied jokingly. "But I think I'm glad we were."

As he said that, Bunnymund dragged Jack down so he was lying beside him.

"Bunny, what are yo-" Jack began, but he was cut off as the rabbit's lips forced themselves onto his. When he was released, he said, "Oh," and gripped the bunny's - his bunny's - chest fur and pulled him in for another kiss. But this one was much shorter than the first, because Bunnymund pulled Jack away after a few seconds.

"Now, I still have to give you your reward," he said.

"What kind of reward?" Jack asked, anxious to get back to what he was doing.

"Well," Bunny began. "I have some extra cream filled eggs here." As he said this, he pulled Jack into his arms and put his head on Jacks shoulder.

"I love you, Jack." Tears of happiness welled up in Jack's eyes at these words.

"I love you, too, Bunnymund."