Chioniphobia

Breakfast

Grim hadn't really intended for things to go the way they had.

She'd avoided Bunny ever since That Incident. She would've kept avoiding him, but then he'd made his way back into her life through the company of Jack Frost. She couldn't avoid him all of the time, not without sacrificing her time with Jack, and after three hundred years of leaving Frost isolated she wasn't about to do that, not for anything.

Still, she'd managed to dance around the subject. Grim and Bunny had talked since their reunion, had some witty banter, joked around, teased and tormented. It was easier than she'd anticipated, to fall back into their old pattern.

But their old pattern had been broken for a reason, and Bunny insisted on coming back to that reason, over and over again. So, over and over again, Grim ran away from it.

It was a new pattern, almost identical to the old, but with one important change to the cycle. Perhaps she could've learned to live with it, at least until it was inevitably upset again. However, instead of waiting for the inevitable, Grim had initiated it.

She really hadn't intended to. She'd stolen one of his funny bent-stick weapons, led him on a merry chase through the woods. She'd set it down for him to find in some clearing, and

(his eyes wide and bright with adrenaline)

he'd come into the clearing, picked up his stick, and-

-it was an instinct, automatic, when she struck. He dodged- her approach was too sloppy for there to have been any other outcome- but she struck again, and she smiled, and she told him (warned him) to run.

He hadn't. He'd stayed there, stubborn and stupid, and she'd wanted to scream at him.

Run, you idiot. Run from me. I'm the reason why someday you will not exist in this world. I am dangerous. I am a monster. Fear me, you fool. Despise me. Hate me.

But he hadn't, because he never had. He feared her, as all things should, but what good was fear if it didn't compel one to run, to hide, to escape? How could he hope to flee Death when he kept welcoming her with open arms?

She looked up at him, her mouth bloody, and sneered.

Can't you see I'm dangerous?

"You'll excuse me, I hope. I didn't get any breakfast."

He stared at her, completely still save for the jerking of his body as it lost more and more blood.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Tooth gasped and flung the tooth away from her, watching them fall to the grass at Bunny's feet. Bunny picked it up and examined it.

"How'd you get Grimace to hand over a couple'a her choppers anyway?" he asked.

Tooth stared at the small pointed object in her fellow Guardian's paws, then at the Guardian himself. She studied the tenderness in his eyes, clouded by hurt.

"I just asked her," she answered truthfully. "She gave me the teeth and then asked if I wanted anything from her 'collection.'" Tooth shuddered. "What does she collect, anyway? Bones?"

"You collect bones."

"I collect teeth," she corrected.

"Well, Grim collects colors, so ya don't need to keep making that face, sheila." Bunny squinted at her. "How come you turn chook whenever she's around, anyway? What's she done to you?"

"Nothing! She just hates me! I don't know why, but...well...she always has this look on her face whenever I'm around, like she's going to..." Tooth flailed.