Chapter Text
Revealing his Pooka form to the Guardians had been a mess, Jack decided after the fact. Which was why he decided that he'd do much better revealing his nature to the Burgess Believers. Jack didn’t plan just one dramatic reveal of his newfound identity, he planned several. He planned a personal one for almost every single one of his group of believer friends.
Well, it wasn't all Jack's idea. There was an insistent cold bug sweeping the town of Burgess, and most of the kids had caught it. Jamie was one of the few healthy ones and had roped Jack into cheering up his ailing friends, even helping Jack plan out dramatic reveals for each of them.
Jack had been rather surprised by it all, especially since Jamie had before been so insistent on being there when Jack revealed his nature to the rest of the kids. He'd been looking forward to it, hadn't he?
"Yeah, of course," Jamie had replied when Jack had asked him about it. "But making my friends happy is more important than that."
The surge of pride Jack had felt when he'd heard that really drove it home how important Jamie had become to him, like a younger sibling. Jack knew he'd felt similarly proud of Poppy whenever he'd gotten to see one of her flower arrangements, and was sure he'd have felt this same pride about Poppy as well, if he'd ever gotten to see her grow up. At least he'd get too see Jamie grow up, Jamie and the rest of Burgess believers.
It helped Jack find a new appreciation for how Sage had used to look after him during their training years. Just because you couldn't be with your younger sibling didn't meant you stopped being an older sibling. Although Jack was sure Sage had never been quite as protective and proud of Jack as Jack was becoming of Jamie, Sage had always been a very supportive friend. Jack was determined to do his best support these kids in turn.
The first one of the Burgess Believers that Jack visited was Monty. He was the obvious choice because Jamie insisted that Jack should surprise everyone during the same day so that no one would spoil the surprise for each other, and Monty was always the one to rise the earliest among the kids. Apparently he liked how quiet mornings could be, even with birds singing loudly in the nearby trees outside.
Jack perched on the backrest of the living room couch as Monty drank a mug of tea in deep gulps. The boy's mother had prepared him a full thermos of the stuff that would be more than enough for Monty's needs while she was out grocery shopping. Really, whenever Jack wondered how a kid as young as Monty could worry so much, he just needed to look at the boy's mother fuss.
"You're sure you won't catch my cold?" Monty asked for the third time when he put his mug down on the coffee table. "I know you said spirits don't get sick, but..." The boy trailed off, his hands rotating his mug so it sat in a perfect angle on the table.
"We don't get runny noses or anything like that," Jack insisted with a grin. He'd given himself the perfect opening with that answer, which was truthful. Now would come the lie. "We change completely." The winter spirit wiggled his fingers for effect.
Monty gave Jack an unimpressed look. "Really?" he murmured, and Jack hadn't know a ten-year-old could sound so droll.
Jack scoffed. That was so unappreciative, especially when he was going to such an effort to create the perfect surprise. Just for that, he'd amp up the ham.
And so he did. The winter spirit made a dramatic show of losing his balance and toppling backwards off the couch.
"Augh!" he cried out, adding some croaking throat-sounds for effect. "It's happening! I'm turning into a woodland creature!"
"Jack, stop it," Monty said as sternly as he could with a clogged nose and a touch of panic distorting his words. "I'm not falling for this." Regardless, Jack heard the worry in the boy's voice, accompanied by sounds of movement when Monty stood up from the cushioned seat and started walking around the couch.
There was an upside to North's fascination with making things and his joy at giving presents. After that year's skating party North had proudly presented to Jack a new design for pants that would allow him to shift between human and Pooka without a need to strip partially first. They were baggier than Jack was used to, especially around the knees and shins, they had to be with how Pooka legs bent, but the adjustable waistline was a definite plus, considering how Jack's waist was considerable narrower than his hips in Pooka form. What really mattered, however, was that the pants were functional, since they allowed Jack to be in his full Pooka form by the time Monty finished coming around the couch.
Monty stared, eyes wide behind his glasses. Jack grinned and waved, but the boy stayed frozen in place.
Jack frowned. "Did I break you, kid?" he asked. Really, he'd been expecting screaming or something. Maybe he shouldn't have made all those terrible dying noises; they probably made this situation scarier than it would have otherwise been.
Without a word, Monty turned around and walked back around the couch. Jack stood up to watch the boy walk over to the plush living room carpet and lie down there, staring at the ceiling It was all more than a touch worrying.
“Hey, Monty.” Jack leaped over the couch and landed beside the boy in a crouch. “What are you doing?”
“Rethinking everything,” the blond murmured, adjusting his glasses.
“Right.” Jack chuckled as he sat himself down to look at the kid. So he was fine, after all, just adjusting what he knew to what he had seen. “You and Jamie are both such serious kids.”
“At least you know our maturity won’t affect our belief in you,” Monty commented.
Jack paused. Not just mature, these kids were sharp. He mulled over things for a bit, before saying: "I didn't change shape because I caught your cold, you know."
There was a long, slightly raspy breath from Monty, a snotty sigh of relief. "Oh, good," the boy said. He frowned and looked up at Jack. "Then how did you change shape? It doesn't seem to make sense."
"I'm apparently a shape-shifter," Jack said with a wide grin. "Cool, isn't it?"
Monty continued frowning, the expression more curious than anything. "So..." The boy drew the word out before he asked: "How does it work? Do you only change into a rabbit or is it winter animals in general or can you change into anything?"
Jack chuckled. "In theory, I can change into anything as soon as I learn to do it," the winter spirit answered. He decided that the whole ‘space alien’ revelation could wait for later. He didn’t want to damage the kid, since this all seemed like it was a lot for him to take in.
Okay, so maybe early morning was a bad time for a practical joke.
Caleb and Claude were next on Jack's list. The twins were rather bouncy even when they were ill, especially since they'd already been sick for some days and the worst of the illness had had a chance to pass for them both. In fact, Jack was pretty sure that the twins were moving more towards cabin fever than any cold-induced fever.
It was easy to foresee, since it was easier to be energetic when there was someone there to constantly spur you on. The twins were easy to goad into a game of chase (more like a mixture of tag and hide-and-seek, since Jack was wary of wearing them out too much) around the house, when Jack could surprise the kids each in turn with different shifted appendages.
For Caleb, he showed a pair of rabbit ears, which were gone by the time the boy caught him. And for Claude, Jack showed a bird's beak, which would also vanish in another moment. Accompanied by some themed one liners about flying or hopping and the twins were both wondering what kind of trickery it was, or if they'd just gotten too immersed in the game and started imagining new things for it.
The bird beak was an easy pick for Jack, since bird features were the easiest things he could shift besides Pooka and human features. It made sense that the first forms Jack learned to morph into outside his two base forms were aquiline. His powers did grant him a certain affinity with the air and flying.
It was, of course, only a matter of time before the boys caught on. It was only after he’d popped rabbit ears in front of Claude that Jack realized that the twins had swapped shirts while Jack’s attention had been elsewhere. The duo had quite effectively turned the tables on him and Jack was actually quite proud of them for it. He even told them as much, after he’d finished giving them both noogies.
--
When pranking Cupcake, Jack took advantage of the terrain like a true expert. Which, in practise, meant changing his skin and hair into pink to match the girl’s mountains of plush toys and lying down among them, with only his apparently empty clothes left behind.
That prank ended up backfiring spectacularly, however, when Cupcake soon started screaming indignantly about Jack going around streaking, which in turn got Jack jumping off the plush mound and yelling indignantly right back.
Really, what did this kid think? That he’s streak just to get a reaction?
Actually, considering that he had a pink face for the sake of getting a reaction, the kid might be justified in thinking that.
Pippa was the hardest one. Mostly because Jack didn’t even get a chance to try anything before the girl lifted a hand, palm out, to stop him.
“I know you’ve been going around shape-shifting. I know you can do it,” the girl had deadpanned.
“Yeah?” Jack had crossed his arms sullenly. “How did you know?”
“I got the info from Monty,” the girl replied smugly. “He was being even more skittish than usual when I chatted with him online.”
“What are you, Nancy Drew?” Seriously, if Jamie was the paranormal investigator of the bunch, Pippa was the hardboiled detective. She was inquisitive, but also sceptical (Jack sometimes wondered if she’d be the first one to stop believing, explaining the supernatural away with sharp wit). Thankfully, such worries were still some years away from being topical.
Jack smirked. Oh, well, there was one thing she couldn’t have gotten from Monty (seriously, these kids and their technology took all the mystery out of life).
“So, you know I’m a space alien, like Bunny?” The winter spirit’s smirk widened as Pippa’s mouth dropped open.
He was still champeen.
Sophie was the last one Jack revealed his secret to, and the only one not under flu quarantine. It was really a rather simple plan. He joined the girl for a tea party (she was already at that age, apparently) and asked her what she thought Jack should be if he could be anything else in the world.
“A bunny!” the girl shrieked in delight. Like there’d been any doubt over what her answer would be. Jamie was smiling expectantly from his own seat next to his sister.
Jack grinned widely. “Like this?” he asked as his ears morphed into long rabbit ears.
Sophie squealed and clapped her hands in delight. “More, more!” the girl giggled.
“Alrighty then.” Jack grew whiskers and a rabbit nose. With Sophie’s applause cheering him on he was soon in his full Pooka form. “So?” He struck a heroic pose for effect. “What do you think?”
“Again! Again!” Sophie cheered, while Jamie laughed beside her.
Really, who was Jack to disappoint such an appreciative crowd? Even if it did end up meaning that he’d spend most of the remainder of the day shifting back and forth between Pooka and human.