Chapter Text
“So I hear that I’m a fur brain who is not to be listened to."
Kozmotis does not start laughing right on the spot.
He feels like this may be his greatest accomplishment to date. The fact that he keeps a stoic face is a far more harrowing deed than any battle he has been in.
Sehstor stands by him on the main deck of the ship, staring out through shields into the endless star speckled void around them, while his prediction about Seraphina’s big mouth comes true. The fact that he keeps calm is a damned act of the utmost fortitude and personal discipline.
Kozmotis sniffs, shifts his weight, his forehead creases just slightly between the brows. Stars he’s good, he should get a medal. Another one at least, he has enough as it is, but he should get another one for this moment.
“It really is the ultimate shame of my life,” he sighs, watching the nebulae and galaxies in the distance, “that my own flesh and blood would betray me so callously.”
Sehstor barely twitches a whisker. They both should get medals. “She’s just smart. Girl knows what information is valuable, and that sometimes doing the right thing comes before family. Musta been something she learned because The Egg knows it wasn’t inherited.”
That’s just low. Kozmotis narrows his eyes at the field of stars, then glances at Sehstor, who doesn’t look away from the shields. Only the slight twitch of his ear gives him away, the bastard.
“You told her I was full of hot air.” Kozmotis says, voice flat.
Sehstor shrugs. “I was going easy on you. Can’t tell a poor girl that her dad is full of shit, can I? It’d break her heart, knowing she’d be related to that. The shame of being your daughter would haunt the dear for the rest of her life. And you shits live long enough as it is.”
Kozmotis punches him in the arm, hard. Half the crew jumps at the yelp and curse when the Pookah leaps a couple feet into the air. It’s a new lot, and they have yet to adjust to the sudden and often violent outbursts from their esteemed, legendary Generals.
“Ya fucking bastard! You had your gauntlets on!”
“You’re lucky we need to set a good image for the men.” Kozmotis growls, ignoring the fact that said men are staring wide eyed at the spectacle their two commanders are making. He glances over his shoulder at the officers on the bridge and raises a brow. “Not that I’d ever expect them to let a little foolishness distract them from their work.”
He pauses for some dramatic effect while the officers scramble back to their various duties. It's always too much fun taking a new crew out. As attached as he was to his core officers, it was farrrr too fun seeing how jumpy a new batch was as their expectations violently collided with the reality of being on a vessel with The Golden General.
“Stop stroking your ego.” Sehstor mutters, still rubbing his arm.
Kozmotis doesn’t fight the grin this time. “No.”
He looks back to the window, and the sight of his moon, now smaller and smaller, sobers him in an instant.
It always shrinks far too quickly, and no matter how many years have gone by, he still can’t stop the wrenching twist of apprehension in his chest.
Can never forget the one time he came back to a shattered world.
The blood on his hands, on his blade, on the deck of the ship. Bodies and blood and give of a sword through flesh and bone. Black and red smeared over the golden white pillars of his home and the distant sound of a crying baby girl.
“She’ll be alright.” Sehstor says quietly. “Your fits have seen to it that your oversized rock has as much protection as the Imperial Moon.”
“She’ll be alright, because I’ve made sure that nothing is going to happen to her.” Kozmotis says quietly, not taking his eyes off his home, now barely larger than the head of a pin.
“Koz." Sehstor sighs, ears falling back as he looks up at his old friend. "You don’t have to keep going on every mission they ask
you to. I think at this point you’re allowed to maybe ask for some time off to stay with her.”
“No.” Kozmotis shakes his head, crosses his arms in front of him stiffly. “No. I need to finish this. The universe isn’t safe for her yet and I can’t sit back until I’m done.”
Sehstor snorts and flicks one ear. “You’re a walking cliche, you know that? As long as I don’t have to try to talk you down from any more bloodbaths, alright? Last time you nearly disemboweled me, and I don’t plan on reliving that experience.”
“If I disembowel you,” Kozmotis says, voice very serious, “you won’t relive anything.”
“Thank you for that. That’s very comforting. Your words are like a damn balm to my worried soul.”
The moon vanishes into a spec, lost in the sea of stars and void, and Kozmotis smiles. “Well, what are friends for?”
He starts looking forward to Jack's visits.
It's unclear when exactly that development started.
It could have been shortly after the chess match.
It could have been after Jack came back with an eager grin and a thin DVD box in one hand. Popping up in the window and strolling around like he was actually welcome instead of just tolerated.
Kozmotis had managed to get Sandy to get a television into his quarters with minimal fuss (he still hasn’t asked where Sandy gets most of these things, and still doesn’t really want to. The thing had sat untouched like some dark ominous talisman to this friendship that he was going to be subjected to).
It could have been when they sat awkwardly on opposite ends of the couch. Jack perched up on the balls of his feet because the overactive brat seemed allergic to sitting down, and Kozmotis jammed up against them armrest with his arms folded tight across his chest and his knees folded up like he was trying to keep any stray body parts from getting too close.
At first, even that distance doesn’t feel far enough.
Kozmotis may be better, overall, but Jack is still dangerously close and the proximity grates on his skin and fills his head with a static buzz of rage and shadow. The air between them is static and thick and thin with cold all at once and he can’t pull himself far enough away.
Too late too late too little too late Jackson Overland Frost where were you where were you when we truly had something where were you when we were alone in the world where were you when I was whole and the butterflies hadn’t fallen where were you
Stop
Breathe
Jack lets him keep his distance without any comment or even an odd glance. Slowly, steadily, Kozmotis begins to relax.
The meetings (Get togethers? Encounters? What would he call these odd visits where they just sat and watched corny science fiction anyway?) go on, his posture slowly gives from stiff and hyperaware to a steadily growing half hazard spread of limbs.
He really hadn’t noticed the change until halfway through an episode of Star Trek: Voyager (which he will refuse to admit to liking, though he has a feeling Jack is catching on to the lack of sarcasm) when he realized he was in a half sprawl with one leg stretched over the couch and the other hanging loosely to the floor.
When he realizes what’s going on, he’s almost insulted by the implications. At some point, between several versions of Star Wars and the newer Star Trek Movies, completely without his permission, some part of him had decided that Jack was safe.
Somehow he had managed to get comfortable enough to let himself actually relax, which was a mistake that he can't believe slipped past him until it was too late. He can't let himself get comfortable, because Jack is certainly and most definitely not. safe.
But he still can’t really pinpoint when, exactly, that Jack had become less of a burden.
It could have been two episodes into Doctor Who, when Kozmotis threw a pillow at the television as hard as he could because he could not STAND the show making one more damn pun about that absurd character name. Or when he threw a book at it instead for continuously spewing the most nonsensical scientific technobabble he had ever heard.
The rest of the episode was missed because Jack started laughing so hard that he fell off the couch. Kozmotis shifted to throwing things at him instead, as punishment for making him watch this ridiculous nonsense.
Or perhaps it was after that. When Jack left, and a week later Kozmotis found himself actually wondering when he'd get another visit. While the days were growing longer and warmer in the South where Sandy's castle resided, Jack's season was coming up in the Northern hemisphere.
"I don't know when I'll be able to drop by again, most of my belief is up there still and there are a lot of snowball fights to start!" Jack grins leaning in the window. "You'll have to wait to find out what happens to the Doctor.
Kozmotis sniffs and turns a page in his book, curled sideways in the large chair with his head crammed against the armrest, "Please, by all means, I beg you to take as much time as you need."
"You say the sweetest things Kozzy." Jack sighs dramatically, falling out the window and onto the wind.
"Don't call me that." Kozmotis growls, fully aware that Jack can't hear him.
He keeps hanging around the window, wondering just how many snowball fights the brat needs to make.
The silence in the room is sharp and pulls at him, and he finds himself wishing for a low voice cracking some absurd joke or making fun of the way he sits, just so he can hear something besides himself. He doesn't tell Jack that he sprawls and stretches over the furniture because some deranged part of his head decided that Jack was safe enough to relax around.
But Jack isn't safe. Isn't safe for him isn't safe from him. He has to keep reminding himself that this is not something he can allow himself to become comfortable with.
He can't be friends with Jack Frost.
He can't.
‘You’re too selfish to actually tell him to give up.’ The voice says sliding through when he glances at the window one day. ‘You’re too lonely, too pathetic. Too selfish to admit that you don’t deserve a friend.’ He grits his teeth until he can hear his molars grinding into each other, hoping the grating will drown out the voice. But it just drops to a hiss, softer yet so much louder. ‘You’re too afraid. Afraid of remembering what happened to the last friend you had.’
Rusty colored fur dark and matted with blood a blue and gold uniform torn by a blade
“Koz no, stars no.”
This time he doesn’t try arguing with the voice, and it fades away with a dark laugh.
“Kirk needs to be stripped of his rank and probably court martialed.”
“Ok.” Jack says, narrowing his eyes and pointing a threatening finger at Kozmotis from the other side of the couch. “First of all, this is Starfleet, not the military, he can’t be court martialed. Secondly, don’t you ever insult Captain James Tiberius Kirk like that again. I won’t stand for that blasphemy. He is the greatest captain ever and-”
“He’s supposedly in charge of what appears to be a scientific expedition to discover new worlds and interact with other civilizations! And as a scientific explorer he has to keep as much objectivity as he can and stay impersonal with his proceedings!”
Jack looks bored, “Ok? Go on Mr. Spock.”
“And- shut up- AND how is he supposed to be an impersonal observer when he can’t keep his pants on around aliens who even slightly resemble females!?”
“He’s just gathering data on how they do it.”
“Do it.” Kozmotis repeats, lips curling in distaste. “Really?”
“It’s for science.” Jack’s face is completely serious.
“You’re a moron.”
Jack waves the insult away with an airy flap of his hand, “Since when are you an expert on scientific expeditions or whatever?”
“Since I captained a few.” Kozmotis growls. That get’s Jack’s attention. The brat shoots up from his loose flop on the seat of the couch, face lighting up.
“No way!”
Jack has that wide grin (really though, when isn’t Jack grinning like an idiot) and a bright gleam in his eyes as he perches up on the back of the couch, smiling at Kozmotis with fluttering expectation. He isn't going to let this one go.
“You look like a deranged bird.” Kozmotis informs him. Because he does.
“Oh don’t get all coy now! Come on, tell me about it!” Jack urges, practically bouncing on the spot.
Kozmotis looks back at the TV, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I’m not here to feed your strange space obsession, you have this nonsense for that.” He tips his chin in the direction of the screen, where Kirk and the pointy eared second are busy staring at each other meaningfully. The two characters share a grin that speaks of years of working together, and Kozmotis rapidly blinks away the image of a smug grin and twitching ears.
“Yeah but you’re the real thing! Besides, all you ever do is sit there and either glare or sulk or argue with yourself. Talk a bit and get out of that loony head for a few minutes!”
Kozmotis twists his head around to stare at Jack again, mouth almost falling open in complete shock. “Are you emotionally manipulating me into telling you what amount to bedtime stories about space adventures?!”
Jack’s smile is pure innocence. “I’m not going to bed.”
“And I’m not going to talk about it. I don’t like thinking about-”
“What? Awesome adventures? Jumping the stars and discovering bright new worlds? Come oonnnn what could be so bad?”
- “Come ON Sehs! What could be so bad?”
“Getting stuck in a can with you for several years?” Sehstor shoots back without missing a beat.
“We could be on one of the voyages that finds a new galaxy! We could be the first in the whole empire to set foot on a planet!”
Sehstor’s fur bristles and he shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not part of your empire Koz. I’m here as part of the alliance, remember? I’m….Pookah aren’t used to being separated from the family clan. It’d be...difficult...being alone like that.”
“Hey fuck you.” Koz snorts. “You have me out there.”
“Ugh just you? STARS no Koz!”
“Koz no oh Stars no…” -
“I don’t like thinking about what was lost!” He snaps, shouting over the echoes and the sound of fur and flesh ripping.
"If I disembowel you, you won't relive anything."
Jack stops bouncing, smile sliding away and he settles back down into a sedate, tucked up crouch. “Ok. Um, yeah. That’s. Ok. Do you want to keep watching this? This doesn’t bring like...bad memories back does it?”
Kozmotis snorts, quickly latching onto something that won’t make him think about...well...anything else. “This drivel is so far removed from reality that any trauma it causes is entirely new and caused by said drivel.”
Jack blinks, then the smile make a tentative return. “You’re so full of shit, you just want to watch the next episode."
Kozmotis snorts in disgust, and settles back onto the couch.
Halfway through the next episode, he uncrosses his arms, and finds himself starting to sprawl again.
"Hey! Guess who got their hands on Blade Runner!"
Kozmotis had been feeling unusually calm and peaceful this morning. A shower (wonderful invention, thank Stars this planet has finally caught up with that) had been a welcome brief escape, and he was feeling relaxed and loose and calm until he nearly brains himself on the bathroom door as he walks out, still dripping but thankfully freshly dressed. "Jack?!"
Jack waves, movie in hand, from where he's perched in the window, looking like he's been there for a while. "Correct! What's up? I went ahead and let myself in. Gotta say, I'm really disappointed that you don't sing in the shower."
"Terribly sorry that I let you down." Kozmotis mutters, pushing a hand back through his hair to get it in place. Jack hops down from the couch, tossing the movie from one hand to the other as he heads to the television. Luckily Sandy really didn’t question it when Kozmotis had asked for one a few months ago. Apparently saying “If I don’t have some form of entertainment I’m going to try to start reconstructing the walls” was all it took.
"Eh, I'll let you off the hook this time. What are friends for, right?"
Kozmotis tenses up halfway to the couch, it’s the first time either of them has used the f-word.
'How sweet, now that you're tame and caged and docile, you're acceptable friend material. Isn't that just-'
'Stop it.'
'What do you think it will look like? When you finally snap back to what you really are. When he gets close enough for you to reach out and-'
'Stop it!'
'Do you think he'll s c r e a m?'
Something flutters in front of his eyes and he starts back, blinking rapidly until he realizes that it's Jack's hand waving in front of him.
"Hello, Earth to Kozzy? Come in Kozzy. You're letting your head talk at you too much again." Jack looks up at him with raised eyebrows, the small smile doing little to hide the actual concern on his face.
'And he's so worried! How adorable. How perfectly charming. Do you think he'll be as worried when you stop being a broken husk? When you remember who you are, what we are, and-'
"You need to stop coming here." Kozmotis finally says, letting it out in a rush and stepping back. Puts distance between himself and Jack (distance, he needs to keep his distance how could he forget about distance?) while laughter bounces around between his ears. "You can't-"
"What, we're on this again? Come on Koz! We've been having fun! Is this because you cried at E.T?"
"You don't understand! It's not safe! It- I didn't cry!"
Jack grins and raises his eyebrows. “You cried a little bit. It’s ok Koz, I won’t tell a soul.”
“I wasn’t crying! You were the one who wouldn’t shut up the entire time about how gorgeous a movie it was!”
“Yeah and I totally saw some tears over there. No need to hide it.”
“You’re changing the subject!”
Jack leans on his staff, still beaming that thousand watt grin. “Yep.” He winks and adds, “Worked, didn’t it?”
Technically, temporarily, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s having this little issue in the first place. It doesn’t change the fact that he keeps hearing himself wanting to rip Jack apart and Jack is treating it like it’s some temporary nuisance that can be swept away with distractions and jokes. "This isn't a game Jack. It's not-" He takes a breath, tries to find words and put them in some semblance of order that won’t completely terrorize Jack. "You coming here, over and over again, it only helps in short bursts. I’m not- you don't understand!"
"Alright." Jack says easily, hopping up to crouch on the crook of his staff, "explain it then. Use your words."
"You keep coming here, determined to be friends and play games and- you have no idea. You seriously have no idea what sort of danger you're putting yourself into every time!"
"Yeah." Jack drawls, "You might throw another card deck at me."
"It's not a joke!" Kozmotis explodes. Jack pauses, shifts for a second as the smile falls away and he hops down from his staff with a small nod, watching as Kozmotis begins to pace the room.
"Ok." Jack says carefully, fingers moving nervously on the staff. "Ok. Sorry I- yeah go on."
"I'm not suddenly all nice and safe again just because the fearlings were chased away." Kozmotis begins, hands twitching at his sides while he fights the urge to grab at his hair again. "It's- There's still some of it left. I feel it every day pulling at me and dragging me down. Every time I think it's better, it just changes. It used to be just urges. I'd look at you, look at the Guardians, I'd just think about them, and-" he pauses to take a slow breath, steadying himself, "I'd want to rip you, them, apart."
Jack stays mercifully quiet, face unreadable while Kozmotis takes another few breaths.
"Now it's like a voice, it IS a voice, in the back of my head." He runs his hand back through his hair with a wince when he feels the low angry hiss in his skull. "Like every part of me that was Pitch Black is condensing into this once voice, not letting me forget what I was, what part of me still is. I hear it when you're here and whenever I try to pretend that I'm alright. While you put in your movies and bring your games, it's telling me to kill you, HOW to kill you. Even when I don't hear it- when it's not making a sound, I-...I feel it, just crouching within the corners of my mind, waiting for me to slip." He trails off, a chill rushing up his spine and his hands running back over his skull, like the action will somehow brush away the memories and feel of that whisper.
"You can't keep coming here." He says again. "It's not-...I appreciate what you're trying to do. I know. But-"
"You're doing a really good job though." Jack interrupts. Kozmotis pulls his hands down and frowns at him, confused.
"What?"
"With keeping it under wraps I guess." Jack shrugs. "Honestly! You talk like you're constantly on the edge of exploding at everyone, but I can hardly tell. If there's a bit of the old guy in there, you're doing a great job keeping him locked in. The most I see on the outside is the occasional wince or when you zone out. And even then you always look like you're shaking it off."
"Jack just because I don't LOOK bad doesn't mean-"
"No, it does! Hear me out on this ok?" Jack pauses to make sure Kozmotis is going to let him talk, then he nods and goes on. "You keep it under control. You manage it and don't let any of that crazy out! If it tells you to kill things then all you're doing is frowning at thin air or spacing out a little. The closest to violence or anger I've seen you get is when you're losing some game or a movie makes a dumb joke!"
"Jack-"
"And-" Jack interrupts again, "you're relaxing more! You don't tense up and glare whenever I come in, until now you haven't told me to get out, you actually enjoyed E.T, and I know for a fact that you’re nursing a huge mancrush on Picard. Don't try to tell me you aren’t!"
"It's not-"
"How about this. If you try anything," Jack hefts his staff onto this shoulder with a grin, "I'll throw so much ice at you, it'll take years to thaw your ass out. I could handle you when you were throwing a big nasty looking scythe around, I'm sure I could take you on now."
The corners of his mouth twitch a little, entirely against his will. "Are you sure about that?"
"Pfff definitely." Jack scoffs. "I knocked you right out of the freakin sky and that was when you had all your crazy nightmare sand going for you! Now I'm a Guardian and you're like...a princess trapped in the tower or something."
"I'm a what!?"
"I'm just making the best analogy here!" Jack says innocently.
The new argument that breaks out lasts them nearly an entire hour, and Kozmotis almost starts to forget why he was worried.
He almost starts to think that maybe, somehow, things may actually get better.
Things may get better, but sometimes it doesn’t really feel that way.
It’s almost easier, when the whispers are loud and particularly sinister and violent. When the remnants of shadow feels like an inky tar that’s stained his insides and the memories of Pitch Black are loud and sharp.
Those days weren’t good by any stretch of the word. They weren’t anywhere close to the vague vicinity of “good.” But at least, if they were extremely bad, then he could take some sort of warped comfort in the fact that none of that was him, and instead could be blamed as an unfortunate side effect of being infected with the dark plague of the universe for a few eons or so.
Sometimes he feels like ripping out of his own skin and knocking the heads out of anything that comes close. Sometimes he feels like he's some caged beast that will burst out as soon as he finds a crack in the bars. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing in his head but rage and shadow and regret and the voice of Pitch Black is a distant thing.
Sometimes he remembers that Pitch Black doesn't exist, that there is no voice. Sometimes he remembers that everything is Kozmotis Pitchiner, from the shadows to the hissing to the mocking laughter.
All of it forced into some separate voice so that Kozmotis can pretend that it isn't part of him.
He spends most of the day upside down on the couch, with his legs thrown over the back and most of his body on the cushions while his head hangs down over the floor. It's not comfortable, by any means, but the rushing of blood in his head drowns out other sounds and the pounding of his own heart against gravity helps to remind him that he has blood and muscle and a heart that is free of shadow. He rests his hands over his stomach, not moving even when his vision begins to swim and he can see spot of dark at the corners of his eyes, growing and consuming and pulsing over everything he can see.
It's not a comfort, being reminded of the shadows seeping into his eyes and drowning out the light, of a pulsing wave of darkness filling his lungs and veins with burning hate. But he doesn't think he really deserves comfort right now, so he stays with his head down and his blood pounding in his ears.
"Did they just not have furniture where you come from? Is that why you don't know how to sit like a normal person?"
He's past the point of being startled by Jack turning up out of nowhere, so he simply sighs and doesn't move, though his eyes flick to where Jack is perched up on the back of the couch.
The boy looks brighter, more saturated, than he did long ago. He's fuller now than the pale and frozen corpse that had first drawn Pitch in with his lonely eyes and thin shoulders caving in around a thinner chest. All of his blues are bluer, his hair constantly catching light like the shine of a fresh snow in the sun, and his skin, while still pale as death, has tinge of pink and bright glowing life.
Jack has everything he had wanted now. He has belief and a purpose, a family of four in the Guardians, who are closer than they ever were because of this bright snowfall boy.
Jack is glowing with his own confidence and purpose, while Pitch Black is Kozmotis Pitchiner, who lies upside down on the floor just to drown out his thoughts with his own blood and misery.
"You have no idea where I come from."
"Space." Jack breezes, as if there’s no issue with generalizing the entire universe because he can’t even comprehend anything beyond this spec of a world. "Are you in one of those moods?" Jack goes on, casual as if he were asking about the weather.
"Which mood?" Kozmotis growls at the ceiling, "I tend to have more than one."
"Your ‘I’m in a downward spiral of self hate and angst and I’m taking everyone with me’ moods."
He decides it’s best not to dignify that with a response.
“You’re so focused on space.” He says instead.
“Well not all of us got the chance to let ourselves be jaded to the wonders of the great beyond.” Jack shrugs. “I like knowing there’s something bigger, that there’s other stuff going on out there. It makes me feel less alone, even if it’s all so far away.”
He absolutely does not want to be hearing this right now. Kozmotis is in no state to hear Jack start talking about loneliness and his attempts to find comfort in the loneliest place Kozmotis had known. “You wanted stories.” He announces, still looking at the ceiling, but he can see Jack perk up in his periphery.
With a twist he swings his legs down from the couch, pivoting until he’s sitting on the floor instead with one arm on the seat of the couch. “The Void, or Fearlings, as they’re called down here, were already known to possess people. They can drive you insane from the outside, but give them a body to move and they can focus and do some actual and very physical damage. They were called the Nightmare Men, even then, because just being around them could keep you up for days after an encounter.”
There’s a thread on the couch, that is just so slightly out of place. It’s odd, since Sandy made this whole room himself, and therefore must have purposely put a thread on the couch out of place. Kozmotis worries it between his fingers, ignoring Jack’s frown.
“There were some theories that there were still men inside those husks, and they were treated as normal criminals to be tried and locked away on some desolate planet. After a while we started sending a few of our regular criminals there as well, nothing dissuades crime like the threat of being locked in with the Void, after all.”
He glances over and Jack is staring at him like something new and terrible is there. Jack’s eyes are wide and his brow drawn tight, fingers digging into the wood of his staff. Somehow, having Jack look at him like that feels familiar, it feels like home.
“You put regular people out there?” Jack asks, quietly, like there has never been an atrocity on this dear little planet of his.
“Murderers, rapists, enemies of the Empire.” Kozmotis shrugs. “I used to believe in the fair trials for the fallen ones, at least. I thought there was hope to save them, some day.” Oh the irony of that. How he had been so naively sure of a future cure, only to find there was one long after it was too late for him. “I found eventually that killing them was a better option.”
The room chills, and Jack shifts. “What are you going for here, exactly? Telling me all of this?”
“If I found a Nightmare Man, I’d take their head off, simple as that.” Kozmotis goes on, standing up and turning to face Jack, feeling calm and oddly in control.
The same calm he felt that day as he held his sword. The calm kept his grip on it sure even when it began to grow slick with blood. Odd, that they bled like regular men when they were nothing but wrung out shells filled with darkness. The calm keeps his breathing even and his swings sure. This is no place for the scythe, and the sword is more personal.
It’s closer.
So he could feel the blood hit his arm and see their eyes when he took their lives. It was the same every time and each time the calm would wash out his mind and clear his thoughts so there was nothing but the death and the blood and-
The burst of cold on his chest stops him, he realizes he was speaking aloud when his breath hitches midword. Jack’s staff is angled just so the curve of it hits his sternum, and it stops him in his tracks (when had he started walking?).
“Stop that.” Jack says firmly.
When did he start walking when did his fists ball and his knuckles begin to crack from the grip of it what happened where did he go why wasn’t the voice there where was the voice?
“Hey no. No come on breathe.” The staff drops away from his chest (he is breathing that’s the problem he can’t stop breathing he can’t slow it down he can’t even control himself when the shadows are quiet) “Come on man, slowly, in and out this is like basic kid stuff, you know how to breathe. You can’t be some star captain without breathing, Koz.”
Something cold pats his cheek. Jack’s hand.
It’s enough of a sensation to knock him into himself and his breath startles him. It also startles his body, which suddenly decides that it’s had enough of standing up. Jack grabs at his arms when his legs threaten to buckle under him.
“What- how did I - that was me it was just me I don’t know what happened I don’t-”
“Focus on sitting down big guy.”
The couch hits the back of his knees and he falls back, hands shaking and tangled in fabric (when did he grab onto the sleeves of Jack’s shirt?).
“Ok you gotta let go now, I promise you won’t fall through the couch.”
He manages to let go and hinges himself on Jack’s voice. It doesn’t matter what the brat is saying, Kozmotis just needs to hear something, needs something he can listen to besides the blood pounding in his ears and the silence that his head fills far too easily.
“Keep talking.” He rasps after Jack goes quiet. “I don’t care what you talk about just, keep talking. Tell me about what you keep running off to do.”
“What?” Jack blinks. “Why do you want to hear about all that? Is this really-”
“I just need to listen to something else! It’s too quiet, it gets too quiet in here and I can’t just sit and watch the television and without your idiotic chatter all those shows you leave here remind me of everything. They’re terrible but they still make me think of it. So I need you to just talk and ramble about something stupid that has nothing to do with me so I don’t have to hear anything that DOES have to do with me.” None of that made sense, and he doesn’t care. He just needs Jack to understand right now.
“Okay.” Jack exhales and perches gingerly at the far end of the couch, hands moving constantly on his staff. “Well, it’s December now, so I’m really busy getting everyone into the holiday spirit, you know? If I get everyone all wide eyed and in wonder over the snow and frost, it makes North’s job easier. And all the holiday joy is perfect for me, because people WANT to have fun, even though they’re all so stressed. So I’ve been going around a lot and hitting people with the snowballs and just trying to make some more people smile. We’re supposed to focus on kids, but I try to hit the grown ups too. If they get into the fun, then they go out with their kids and everything’s better for them all.”
Jack doesn’t stop fiddling with his staff and keeps glancing over like he’s waiting to be told to stop. Kozmotis knows that Jack isn’t used to talking for this length of time, that he usually keeps himself to frequent little quips and remarks, but doesn’t just talk about his day. He’s very aware that he’s probably making Jack uncomfortable, but can’t really care right now.
“The other day I got a mom to go sledding down the hills in cardboard boxes with her kids.” Jack goes on. Kozmotis leans back on the couch and closes his eyes, not really paying attention, but gripping onto the sound of someone else’s voice and the light subject matter. Jack’s voice is so outside of himself that it’s surprisingly easy to feel himself drift into an odd peace at the sound.
“Are you even listening?”
“No. Yes.” Kozmotis sighs. “Sort of. I can’t tell you what you just said but...it...it’s helping. It gets too quiet in here, and it’s nice hearing a voice that isn’t my own.” This next part will be difficult. Kozmotis sets his jaw and frowns with his eyes still closed. It has to be done, might as well get it overwith. “So...thank you.”
Jack’s laugh is smaller than usual, it’s a soft little chuckle, just a quick puff of air with a small sound to it. “Yeah. Well what are friends for right?”
Friends.
Kozmotis opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. Again. “Are we friends?”
It’s an honest question.
“I...think we are?” Jack says tentatively.
Jack, who’s been visiting semi regularly for several months now. Who’s become a regular occurrence in this strange golden prison. Who just talked Kozmotis out of another breakdown with stories about snowballs and sledding.
“I think we are.” Kozmotis agrees, and he expected saying that to hurt more, after he had been fighting it for so long.
“Do you not know what friendship feels like? Is that why this is so confusing for you?” Jack teases. Which is good, he sounds more like himself that way.
“It’s been...it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a friend.”
“I’ve only started on this friend thing with people, so I’m sure we can figure it out somehow.” Jack shrugs, smile already coming
back to it’s usual spot on his face.
“I’m sure we can.” Kozmotis breathes.
He starts feeling just a little bit better.