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lmelodie · 1 year

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Bad Ending AU

Part One / Part Two / Part Three (Epilogue)

I was going to call this a plot bunny, but I think it may have turned into a full-on snowdrift lol. Oh boy this one is SAD thought experiment that got a little out of hand.

I just had a very innocent thought of “What would happen if Jack and Kills DIDN’T breakup and stayed together?” Very cute, seems great right? WRONG! I have discovered that them staying together makes them 10X WORSE SOMEHOW. The Bad Thing doesn't happen to Kills in this AU but he’s still very unhappy! As is literally everyone else.

Just two dudes trapped in a loveless marriage until one of them betrays the other. And it's not even the one you'd think! (I don’t know if they get like actually married in this au? I would think so but it’s still up in the air.

Put the blorbos through the WRINGER I SAY!

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Another one of their usual fights has erupted. And yet again it's about Jack’s recent, less than stellar behavior toward a certain Christmas Spirit.

How did it come to this? It all started off so innocently, as innocent as two outcast spirits can be when they both have a penchant for causing problems. It's what they loved about one another. Two of a kind, them against the world.

And usually, Killian would have very little to say about Jack having made new enemies besides, ‘Do you need help hiding the body?’ But this little rivalry with Father Christmas has been eating away at Jack for a while now.

Killian can tell that something’s been wrong with him for a bit. He’s restless, desperate, can't seem to get a good night's sleep anymore.

He’s afraid. This Killian knows for certain.

And his attention seeking stunts have gotten more convoluted and more grandiose over time. Killian has tried talking to him on several occasions. Asking him to just take a step back, he’s getting too deep into this one, just put the schemes to rest. Even for a little bit.

But he never listens.

Of course, he never listens.

Bickering between the two was commonplace, usually over something completely inconsequential and it was resolved within the hour. But with his plans for a Christmas take over grow in intensity so too does the arguing. Every word is a personal offense and neither lets things go too easily. It's angry and poisonous. The rift seeps into every other crevice of their lives, further diving them.

And this fight was not unlike all the others.

Killian is saying to him, “You can't keep doing stuff like this. Just admit that all of this is not helping and stop driving yourself into the ground!”

“What would you know?! Says the one that has nothing to prove, content to slither through dumpsters and alleyways. Not all of us are meant to be hiding under beds!”

“I am trying to help you!” His voice softens, “Because you need help, and I want to help you.

I don't want to fight you anymore. I'm too tired to keep fighting you. I just want you to finally be happy. I want us to be happy, I want us to make sense again, and I don't want to do this alone. I don't want you to do this alone.

So, I am asking you to please give this a rest.”

The way the story is supposed to go, is that Jack’s stomach will churn, his emotions will block out all reason. He would think Killian to be pitying him, and active threat to his greater success. He would have ignored Killian’s plea and done something that he will come to regret later. He’s supposed to get rid of this obstacle.

But instead he gets an idea.

His partner's earnest plight stirs in him the makings of a favorable business venture. He looks into the boogeyman's bright red eyes. Of course, why didn't he think of it before? Here he was, his own partner antagonizing him this entire time, thinking of him as a roadblock. Something to push past. When instead he can be the key to success that Jack has been looking for.

“You're absolutely right, I shouldn't be doing this alone,” Jack quickly takes both of Killian’s hands in his own.

“Join me then.”

Jack decides to convince Killian to join his “cause” so to speak. Help me knock Santa down a peg, and I will give you anything and everything you could ever want. He swears up and down that if he helps him take back the season, then everything will go back to normal. If he agrees to help then everything he's said to him, every argument will be water under the bridge. They’ll get a new start, a new Jack, a new chance to find happiness with each other.

With one hand cradling the side of Killian’s face, he whispers:

“If you do this with me, I'll be whoever you want. Your life will be so much easier and most of all. You'll have me. I don't want to leave you; I don't even want to hurt you. I want you to be there with me as we both get everything we deserve. Isn't that what you want? For me to never leave your side...?”

The snake speaks to eve.

And that is what he wants, truly and deeply, Killian wants nothing more. After already having gone through a tumultuous period in their relationship, he is so desperate to make this work. He wants for them to be happy again and he doesn't wanna let him go.

Killian holds onto Jack’s wrist as if he’ll disappear into thin air. He savors the closeness they still have left, the pad of his thumb running across his cheek breaks him. He doesn't wanna do this alone.

He bets his last morsel of trust in Jack, the last egg in the basket. He’s always been sort of a high-risk gambler, and the honeyed promises of a better life, in his vulnerable state, are too good to pass by.

If he wants it hard enough he’ll have it. An ideology the both of them have in common.

So, he says yes. Barely.

A few schemes come and go where they work together to try and garner the humans attention, all with their own heaps of promotional material and all ending in spectacular failure. Killian at one point makes a new shadow entity, Krampus he calls it, to scare people away from Christmas all together.

But plan after failed plan, Jack’s nearing the end of his rope. He still believes that working with Kills is the key, but after so much time he grows more and more frustrated with doing things "the nice way” and suggests a more aggressive strategy.

Being a legendary figure, Jack manages to steal the Legendary Tome from the crypts of Father Times tower. Holding the most powerful spells in all the realms, written by the man in the moon himself. And with the Moon Mandate spell in tow, he and Kills approach the council with promises of a new Ice and Dark Ages era if they want to keep denying Jack’s suggestion. They hold the entire council with world wide ransom.

Of course the council doesn't and would never agree to demands like that. But while in the midst of their outrage, even trying to arrest him for legendary treason, Jack activates the mandate, releasing him of the rule where his powers wouldn't otherwise work on other council members.

And the inevitable struggle ensues, Jack and Killian against the council. Jack figures they all had this coming for far too long, and after a long and drawn out fight he manages to freeze them all. All seven members turned to ice sculptures.

This is not what Killian thought was going to happen.

Well shit, now they gotta think fast. Everyone in the realms is going to notice when the seven most powerful spirits in the world are not only not available but completely indisposed. In any case, they can't unfreeze them or else they’ll be handed punishments of their immortal lives.

And in the middle of trying to figure out what to do, Jack realized what kind of opportunity he just made for himself. A blessing in disguise.

Killian suggests that they thaw and refreeze the council members as needed, to make it seem as though they're still around. He can shapeshift to fit their images easily enough. If they sign a couple of Holiday plan papers into effect and pretend to be the council they’ll all be none the wiser.

But Jack is now far beyond thoughts of just holidays now. Don't you see? Why would he stop now at a single day of the calendar, a single season? When all the realms are now at his fingertips.

Why not take that instead?

“And you!” Jack exclaims, “You will be there with me, every step of the way, just like it's always been. You beautiful, terrifying thing, don't you see?! With both of us at the very top, all the realms answering to us, no one would dare to stop us!”

“Jack this wasn't part of the plan, the plan was to get you a holiday and that was it, I don't want to be incharge of anything here.”

“That's the beauty of it Kills, you don't have to! You leave all the decision making to me and you and your family's lives will be all the easier. Reaping all the benefits without any of the work. And best of all is that my promise still stands. Without any more hoops to jump through, with me in charge, nothing is left keeping me away from you. I get the world and you get me, for the rest of our immortal lives.”

Killian doesn't know what to make of all this. None of this hostile takeover of the realms was a part of the plan. More sweetened promises graze his ears and he’s not sure whether this is actually what he wanted. More or less he's been dragged through every asinine scheme up until this point, but with no more on the horizon, is this it? Will this actually, finally be the chance to have everything be right again?

He looks at Jack, the same eerie blue eyes that he's always had look back, but he doesnt recognize him. This is someone different, someone who he’s unsure if he really wants to know.

But before he could answer, Jack grabs a hold of him by the collar, and silences any thoughts of doubt for the moment. His mouth too occupied to voice the last concerns that were now flying out the window.

He doesn't say No, at least.

He closes his eyes and he hopes for the best. He leans in and Kisses back.

In the following centuries, the folklore peaked and fizzed out in their outrage. Jack was in charge now, providing a very faux red eyed Mother Nature signing away all the council's rights to him. In essence he didn't change much about the everyday lives of the people. Other than entirely replacing Christmas with Frostmas and making its celebration mandatory, the more infrastructure basis of magical society stood resolute. Jack kept most of the realms a secret from human eyes (for the most part) and quelled any mutinous factions whenever they arose.

But without the likes of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Cupid, holidays of every color faded into obscurity. Without coordination from these council heads, no eggs were hidden and no presents were left under trees. Soon these kinds of holidays fell out of practice with humans and folklore alike. What's the point if there was no magic in them anymore?

As the sole “ruler” of all the realms he does the bare minimum, passing off as much work to those under him as possible. He put temporary bandaids on any possible crises, but reaped the notoriety all the same.

He gave into his more business minded facet and tried banking off of some of the less populated realms as tourist attractions. Claiming it would generate additional revenue for the various governmental departments. But of course all of these dangerous business ventures failed, a great relief to the masses.

He froze over Mother Nature's garden and made it his new home, taking Killian along with him.

And just as promised, Killian along with his mother, her daughter and grandchild were all taken care of. Provided monetary and material goods on a basis of every decade. And on paper, he was nothing short of a perfect partner. He’s doing and saying all the right things, dates are frequent, he supports anything Killian wants to do.

But it's not the same.

It hasn't been the same in a very long time. He’s just too different. He’s grown so cold, colder than anything he thought possible. Even when Jack is there Killian still can't help but feel alone. There’s no spark of life to him. It's like talking to a wall, dancing with a scarecrow, there's nothing there.

This isn't Jack Frost. Not the same one he fell in love with all those thousands of years ago. Jack Frost doesn't rule with an iron fist, he doesnt order around the masses to celebrate a single day all about him, Jack Frost doesn't have an unwavering deadness in his eyes.

His touch doesn't feel the same, nothing about him does.

Killian now regrets his decision. This isn't what he wanted. Maybe in theory it would be, but he wanted to be happy with the Jack he knew. Not this stranger in his place.

The only thing that somehow stayed the same is the arguing. They’re hot one minute and cold the next, constantly flipping between loving and hating each other in a single day.

He debates with himself for hundreds of years to leave him. It eats away at him, the push and pull that is Jack Frost. The close whispers in secret places, the broken objects hitting the wall, his hand holding the back of his neck, the hurtful words spat at each other over dinner, how he can't live without him and how he would kill him in a heartbeat.

Some tiny, sick twisted part of himself loves the thrill of it all. But every other part of him knows better than that.

He always has some of his stuff packed, stuffed into the void of the shadows in case he decides to make a break for it in the middle of the night. Waiting for the day to work up the resolve and tell him he’s leaving and never coming back.

But he doesn't get the chance to before something shakes up the status quo.

The year is 2014 when Jack gets word that the Moon magic field has chosen a new human host. This hasn't happened in nearly 200 years, since the first tooth fairy. And with circumstances like these, Jack is determined to get this new spirit on his side as quickly as possible. Better to have them as a friend than an enemy right off the bat.

He summons the likes of one Lucy Miller to his realm, and tries his hardest to convince the girl to work for him. He feels as though the balance of the realms has been slipping a little bit under his reign. He feels as though she could be a big help in maintaining the mortal and magical divide.

She leaves rather unimpressed and says she’ll think about it, but has already decided that working for Jack is not something she’ll do. She feels bad intentions coming from him, no matter how altruistic his words are.

And her doubts are only confirmed when she runs into Killian just outside his realm. He warns her of his penchant for taking things by force. But seeing as how Jack has not been in his good graces for quite some time, Killian offers to teach Lucy how to use her new powers.

Jack's true nature is revealed to Lucy as she and Killian wander the realms, watching what his reign has put people through. The temporary fixes coming undone and leaving entire villages of folklore in the lurch to fend for themselves. She learns of long forgotten holidays and magic spirits, when the world didn't feel quite so small and gray.

When he was his whole world.

Lucy’s distaste for Jack grows more intense as Killian continues to secretly meet up with the teen behind Jack's back. A whole secret world of folklore continues to suffer because of him, and she has to do something about it.

She tries talking to Jack first, but negotiations quickly go sour. He demands that she work for him, claiming a noble purpose. But when she refuses, it's Jack who tries landing the first blow. But Killian is quicker than that and protects her.

Jack is in disbelief as he watches the two of them run out and as far away as possible. Killian didn't look back.

He didn't even look back!

“After everything I've done for him, everything that he put me through, after all the thousands of years of standing by him, he has the audacity to RUN OUT ON ME?!”

Jack is quick to send out a warrant for their immediate arrests, no doubt also planning on freezing them both solid once they're turned in. But the two were quickly taken in by a very small rebel faction that graciously hides them from the law. Lucy’s immediate family joins them in hiding for protection, as they would be the first people Jack would go after to enact the first round of revenge.

She continues to train in secret for years until her, Killian and the small rebel faction plan the coop of the ages. Infiltrate the realm, take out any guards that cause a problem, find the Legendary Tome and when they find Jack, use it as a bargaining chip for his surrender. Lucy was insistent they save anything lethal as a last resort.

But he doesn't surrender. Of course he doesn't listen when Lucy tries one more time to talk to him. Try to reason with a man who has both everything and nothing to lose. But before the book can be destroyed Jack kicks off the fight by going straight for Lucy yet again.

She’s more capable than last time, but still not as experienced as he is. She’s only human after all, very breakable those things. Blow after blow, she somehow manages to hold her own for quite awhile, still trying to knock some sense into him as they fight. Until all too soon she grows tired, she’s been holding him off for a while and it starts catching up.

And just when he thinks he’s going to snuff out this half baked rebellion scheme, Jack gets a condensed shadow straight to the face.

They tag team it, and Lucy retreats to the sidelines to watch Killian enact his revenge.

To say that such a fight was brutal is to say the ocean is vast. Every word that went unsaid came to light here and now in the form of unbridled physical violence. Icicles flew at breakneck speeds, the room was drenched in eldritch darkness, the shadows writhed, the winds blew, what was left of the tether finally snapped.

Neither had any other goal than to thoroughly beat the other into a fine pulp. As payback for all the things he said, for all the shitty ways he made me feel, for the unforgivable crime of making me fall in love with him.

Killian knew Jack wasn't going to thaw out the council himself, nor was he going to stop running himself and all the realms into the ground until there was nothing left of either. He knew he wasn't going to listen.

He knows what he has to do. He would be lying if he said he doesn't want to do this. He would be lying if he said he doesnt wanna kill the bastard right here right now. It's actually the safest option available. But at least it's something. Something to make all of this nonsense stop.

He doesn't want to fight him anymore. He’s too tired to keep fighting him.

Covered in bruises and throbbing cuts aplenty, Killian manages to trap Jack's hands and feet, encasing them in the darkness that surrounds them both. His hands drop to his sides.

“It's over Jack,” he says, “We’re done here. No more fighting, no more arguing, no more plans. This,” he gestures to the room, “is the end of the line.”

“Like hell it is!” Jack exclaims, trying to freeze over the dark bindings on his hands.

“It is like hell isn't it? But in any case, you won't be causing anymore trouble,” Killian invades Jack's personal space, standing all too close to his face.

“And how do you know that? You wouldn't kill me. I know you wouldn't, you love me too much.”

His statement rings with conviction, so sure that there is nothing on this earth that he can do to him that he won't survive. His icy eyes bore into the man in front of him, sharpened with a zeal that cleaned them from their usual frosted over look. He’s silently asking, begging him to try something, almost a jovial taunt that transcended the masquerade he’s been using this whole time.

And only for a moment, a single happenstance in time.

Killian saw Jack Frost staring back at him again.

He lets out a weighted sigh, placing his own forehead against Jacks.

“I know. I'm hopefully going to do something worse.”

With a dark red glow from his hand, Killian’s fingers snapped and the whites of Jack's eyes were flooded out with black. His head tips up at the shock, and then limply dips past his shoulders, without a word or utterance of any sound.

Silent and discreet, his Never Ending Nightmare spell is one of his most powerful. He rarely ever finds the need to use it, but to use it on him was both the biggest relief and the most heartbreaking decision. Ultimately Jack was right, he didn't have the nerve to kill him.

The winter magic gathering in his hands ceased and the shadows crept off of his extremities, leaving Killian to catch his inevitable fall.

And of course he caught him.

With Killian’s own wounds catching up to him, and with Jack’s lifeless body still in his arms, he gently lowered the both of them to the cold ground. He sat on his knees and set Jack aside. His eyes will be forever open and pitch black as he sleeps, walking through the never ending torment of one long nightmare. His burden to bear and his price to pay.

Killian’s shoulders slump as Lucy comes over to check on him. He quickly shoos her away by telling her that Jack’s magic will no longer be in effect, and that the council is probably thawing as they speak. Lucy begrudgingly leaves.

Killian stays on the floor for a very long time.

Jack is gone. Jack has been lost.

And Killian doesn't know where to find him.

#The Santa Clause #the santa clause 3 #musings #plot bunny #blackice #jack frost #slaps the roof of BlackIce stays together #you can fit SO MANY BAD FEELINGS into this bad boy #they ARE toxic and I think that's the point #who knew that your long term partner breaking up with you and hurting you in the porcess #WAS THE GOOD ENDING THE BEST OUTCOME #jesus christ both of yall need therapy #Bad Ending au

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