Jack Frost: The Last Fairytale (Jelsa)

Apples

Cole finished his doughnut in record time. Jessie smiled at the sight of his recovery. Cole's eyes were longer bloodshot and they now held a healthy arctic shade that practically glowed against the snowy whites. His fair skin glowed with soft even coloration, his shivering had stopped, and when he glided the long black hair out of his eyes with a single expert finger she saw his strong chiseled jaw line was set firmly on chewing instead of clattering. Everything pointed to his recovery from the adrenaline and shock, Jessie went back to her desk and shuffled through a plastic bag resting near the keyboard of her computer.

She returned to Cole with an apple cradled in her hand. "Here, fresh from one of my own apple trees. The ones I can save from my horses I bring here when they are ripe. So do you like to go by Jack or Jackson?"

"I just go by Cole," Cole shrugged as he took a bite of the apple and immediately regretted his decision to eat it. "Do you have any milk?" he raised his half-emptied cup of slushy coffee.

"Oh, yes of course. I think we have some in the fridge, I'll be right back."

As soon as Jessie was out of sight, he grimaced and spat out the bite of apple. Both it and the apple itself had spidery insects crawling around inside them and down his arm.

"Too sour?" A strong masculine question caused Cole to jump. Cole looked up to find the strong chinned Sheriff with the cowboy hat standing above him.

Cole shook his head eagerly, he was grateful to have a normal explanation as to why he struggled to eat the apple. "It just wasn't what I was expecting."

"Do you think you can stomach it?" The Sheriff asked.

Cole looked down to see the spidery creatures making their way up his arms. It was obvious that the sheriff must not see them, which meant that they were not real. It took everything to not jump around and try to brush them off he looked up at the sheriff and shook his head.

"Let me see the apple," the sheriff brandished a pocketknife and held his hand out for the apple.

Cole gratefully handed him the spider infested vessel, the sheriff made quick work to slice chunks off but was completely ignorant of the insects pouring from it over his hands and the inhuman squealing the apple made when he sliced it. He tossed the core back to Cole and hid the pieces in a fist as soon a Jessie made her way back with a quart of milk.

She handed the milk to Cole and noticed the unnaturally sliced apple. Cole took the milk and poured it into his coffee hoping that now it would taste more like an iced coffee and less like a bitter slushy.

"Woody, did you eat the poor boys apple?" Jessie's brow furrowed a glare at the man with the Cowboy hat.

"No, no I merely sliced it up so that it was easier to eat. Civil servant and all that good stuff." Woody laughed suspiciously.

Jessie seemed to buy it, she smiled brightly and went to grab more apples for Cole to eat.

Both Cole and Woody's eyes widened in terror but with some quick thinking Woody placed his hand on Cole's shoulder. "I'm sure he'd love another one but now that his is awake and lucid I'd like a few words with him in my office."

Woody led Cole to his office and closed the door.

"Jessie is sweet but her Apple's aren't, she can shoot the wings off a fly from one hundred yards away but the apples she grows are awful. The horses must get the good ones." Woody sat down at his desk and scraped the apple bits into a trashcan behind the desk. "She makes one heck of an apple pie though, no one's quite figured out how she does it with those apples." He nodded his head a chair in front of him, "please take a seat."