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the-wintershade · 1 year

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midnight blossoms

pairing: jack russell x reader summary: it’s been a hundred years since you’d last seen Jack, and the power of the memories won’t leave you. but returning to the place where it all started has a way of bringing him right back to you where he’s always belonged. wc: 3.6k+ (mhmm, there’s plot to this one) genre: ANGSTY, comfort, soft!Jack because he is a teddy bear, immortality angst, sweet reunion bliss a/n: thank you so much for the request anon! this was so much fun to write! i hope you enjoy it, and it fits what you were looking for!

The forest looked different from all those years ago.

Moonlight filtered through the tree branches same as before, but there was something missing in its glow. Maybe it was the spacing of the branches, twisted and maimed by time. Maybe it was the lack of magic in the air when you’d been here around three hundred years ago.

You could feel the sleepiness in the earth now. There used to be a greater buzz, more energy to draw from when you’d create little balls of fire for your campfires. The groups of supernaturals back then could be from fifty to one hundred.

Now, it was hard to find anyone that lived nearby that’d seen as many forests flattened to marshes and flimsy wooden buildings charred to nothing. There were many places that claimed to be a part of the “moon folk,” but their potions were cheap and murky and ambiguous words taken from fortune cookies.

You knew as much as the next supernatural that you didn’t need herbs and glowing juices to do what you did. All you needed was the energy of the earth, cultivated by the loving and respectful actions of others. Emotional content lived on in the soil. When soil turned into particles of air, the air then carried the emotions too.

That was the most powerful stuff, and that was why it was dying out. People don’t care like they used to.

The wind picked up, snapping through your hair and stinging against the collar of your jacket. You huddled into your outerwear further, squinting through frost-induced tears.

As you leaned forward in your steps, it was as if you could almost see that fire burning again, the gathering place of old friends, some new to time’s gentle embrace and some frozen to its growing incessant staleness. Their laughs pierced through the gale, the glints of their teeth twinkling like stars.

The memory dissolved as you approached the spot of your nightly meetings, a turquoise orb of moon-generated light emanating from your palm suffused the trees around you. The only thing left of this meeting place was the cream-colored flower of the moonflower.

About one hundred years ago, once the meetings had become more regular, a couple of members thought it’d be funny to make a garden, an arrangement of fauna that didn’t sprout until the group gathered with life. Some laughed, but others, you, and a special werewolf named Jack decided it would be fitting.

A garden of midnight life.

And so it came to be.

A new flower was planted each time a member joined and flowers were removed for those who the group had lost. Jack made sure to add one when Ned joined much later in the group’s history.

There were ten flowers then.

There was only one flower now; the only one cared for by you.

Crouching down, you brushed your fingers along its soft, silky petals, a caress of greeting. You felt the blossom hum against your finger in response. A sweet smile curved the side of your lips.

It was too cold for the flowers now, so you had to take some liberties with its environment. You made sure to come back to cast artificial warmth around the gentle plant. To the moonflower, it was always exactly sixty-five degrees.

Your smile lingered as you watered and nurtured the soil around it, pulling from the caring energy that strengthened each time you returned. But you weren’t just smiling from the emotions left behind, there was a special story about this plant.

You and Jack had planted this together. You wanted to place yours near the back, symbolizing your protection over the group. It was true after all. You did always light the fires, waiting for people to gather and creating a cocoon of warmth around everyone. Their joy only strengthened the atmospheric dome.

But Jack stopped you with a worried and soft look. “Oh no, you can’t leave that there. You must be in the middle.”

Your answering laugh was light and confused. You and Jack were friends, but since when would he care where you placed your blossom? “Jack, please. It’s where I want it to be.”

He huffed, teasingly rolling his eyes. “Come,” he bent down to pull you off the ground, gently firm hands holding the back of your elbow. “Let us place your blossom where it truly deserves.”

Your heart soften then, and once again when he kept you close to his body, ushering you along. It felt like you were being put on display as members smiled and smirked at each other as the two of you passed. You’d noticed their subtly knowing eyes for days but rarely did it think it had anything to do with you.

Their words drifted over, ghosts of more meaningful conversations.

“Making a move, huh?”

“About time.”

“I knew it! All it took was a flower and…”

An excited rumbling drifted over. You knew it was Ted. Of course, he would have something to say. He loved teasing the two of you about the way you always paired off to go get things together. It wasn’t your fault that the two of you enjoyed each other's company.

In your procession to the front, among stares of warm, familial eyes, you glanced back at Jack once. His eyes were the brightest you’ve seen them. While you shied away, he was glowing, smiling and nodding at everyone as you passed.

Then his eyes drifted to yours. Something in you melted at his softhearted gaze. His bright orbs relaxed into something warmer, that reminded you of the sugary coffee he loved so much.

He stopped you before you had the chance to look away, looking down at the ground in front of you. He’d led you to the front as he’d promised. He looked up at you with an adoring smile. “Here. Perfect.”

You forgot to breathe, trying to think of what to answer. His light laughs tickled the side of your stomach that pressed into his torso. He softly pulled you down to the ground with him as he placed his flower away to help you with yours.

His hands skimmed over yours as he helped you plant it. You tried to ignore it for the sake of your sanity, but then the bumps and affectionate grazes happened, again and again, fingers tangled together and backs of hands tickled and rubbed.

When you were done, both of your cheeks were a rosy, blushing collage. It was perfect. Claps from those around you, seeing what you had missed the last half a century, filled the air, but you were too lost in Jack to notice.

It was then that everything started. The dates, the warm belly laughs, the private moonlight meetings by a pond nearby. You lived together, loved together, and spent all that time with one another. And the two of you, happily insusceptible to time’s wear and tear on the body, took your time to enjoy what you had with one another.

And then, only a decade into bliss, the town’s people finally found your group’s meeting spot. Laughter morphed into screams, pacts of nonviolence shredded to pieces, and soon there were too many flowers that would need to be ripped up to reflect all the people you’d lost.

You, Jack, and Ted formed a circle, each person fanning out to try to minimize the damage as much as possible. Fires, both from you and Ted and the townsfolk, flickered through the trees, singeing bark and people. Jack’s growls were fierce and furious. Ted incinerated people without so much as a blink. You hurled fire and electricity at people’s heads.

You were all scared and overwhelmed, and eventually, the townspeople overwhelmed you all. Jack cried out. A bullet tore through his chest. You raced to give cover, and Ted followed, but by the shakiness in your arms and the growing wave of people coming, there could be no hope of all three of you getting out alive together.

You’d need to split up. You and Ted had already talked about Jack’s safety before, but since Ted was stronger and you were weak and drained, he would be the one to stay with him. You’d find another way out. You could move faster on your own.

But the procedure didn’t chase away the feeling that you might never see them again, and how little time you had to prepare for that. But you did have enough time to say your goodbyes.

So, you looked at Ted and nodded in silent farewell. His frown matched your own as a glistening tear lit by the orange fires trailed down your cheek. “I’ll miss you, Ted. Take care of yourself.”

His groan sounded more like an anguished and desperate cry. You felt a similar rush of pain well up in your throat.

Ted started to work on fending off the townspeople as best as he could. Their screams disguised your movements as you ran over to Jack. His face, a dense outline of hair in his werewolf state, contorted as he writhed. He folded his body around his abdomen and fresh wound.

Jack was good at healing. You’d found that out after he’d accidentally cut his thumb and he’d healed within about five minutes, but a bullet hole was much worse than a simple cut. It would take too long for him to stay here and try to rest up.

“Jack, baby,” you reached out and smoothed some of the hair out of his face. He flinched, evading your touch, but calmed once he recognized your scent. You’d worked together over the years, practicing when he was in his werewolf state so he’d be able to remember who you were in his shifts. It paid off now. “Ted’s going to take you away from here, alright?”

His eyes, locked on your face, twisted in confusion. He pressed further against your hand as if sensing that you were going to leave him. “You have to go, darling.” You tried smiling through the lump in your throat, but the cracks in your voice gave away how much this was hurting you. “I love you.”

He stilled at your words, frowning. Tears welled up in his eyes. Whatever you were saying must have been getting through to him. He reached up to you, careful not to press his claws against your face as he pressed his large, strong shaking hand to your cheek.

He tapped your cheek three times. It was a way the two of you could communicate when he couldn’t quite use words.

I love you.

Ted’s thunderous footsteps came nearer, but the two of you stayed there, trying to memorize each other’s faces so that time wouldn’t dissolve your features in both of your memories. And then Ted, with one last whining, sad grunt in your direction, picked up Jack and bounded away.

The townspeople were closing too fast to watch them run away, but you could hear Jack’s cry far after you’d hidden further into the woods.

And now, here you were, minus the moon folk, minus your friends, and minus Jack. You were the last known member of a family lost to time.

You always came here, every anniversary of the time the meetings started almost 225 years ago, to honor those that were and those that might still be. Because the stories of the moon folk became so popular nearby, it was safer to dig all of the flowers up, to keep people unaware of who might still be alive to hunt.

But you couldn’t forget the fact that you truly didn’t know how many survived. The only person you knew for sure of to this day was yourself. So you kept the moonflower planted, exactly where it was.

The plant was hurt in the ambush, half bent and weakly tied to its stem. In the five days you waited to return after, it somehow still lived on. You’d acquired some new scars too, a limp that wouldn’t go away until a few weeks later, and a gash up your forearm from a sword from the 18th century that would leave a scar for ten years.

After you’d dug up all of the other moonflowers and tossed them away to protect your family’s anonymity, you nurtured your blossom back to life with the little power you had left and vowed to return.

And here you were. It’d been a hundred years and some change since the ambush and massacre.

The wind drew your attention back to the row of trees you hadn’t realized you were staring at. It was the same row of trees that you’d had the feeling Ted and Jack ran to escape. You never knew if they’d made it, but you couldn’t find their bodies while you searched for people in the weeks following.

It was the last thing you had of Jack. The last image that played through your mind. Your memories, still very susceptible to time, forgot his face. But you had this moonflower in front of you to see all the time, and the affection in his smile was still familiar.

You’d looked for him through the years, but with it being so dangerous, name changes happening so frequently, and your method of moving to survive, it was hard to find anything. Ted would definitely stand out and so you looked at various reports of Big Foot sitings, the closest way mortals would describe him, but nothing matched his features.

Ted and Jack were lost from you.

But maybe one day, on an anniversary, he’d meet you here and you’d be happy again.

You just didn’t realize that day was today.

You collected the wood to start a fire as you’d done before, a ritual to celebrate the times you’d had here. The wind was blowing hard enough to blow out the flame before it caught on the wood, but once you created a cocoon of sixty-five degrees of still wind, the fire had no problem catching.

Your cocoon wasn’t as strong as it was before, the emotions tied to this place fading by the year, but it was enough to keep you protected.

You’d just sat down to do your annual fire-staring contest with yourself before you heard the trees rustling around you. It wasn’t uncommon for different animals to come by to inspect the flames, but these weren’t the steps of an animal.

These were human movements. And human movements spelled danger.

You didn’t bother putting the fire out, but you stood and cloaked yourself, watching for movement around the edges of the trees around you. After fanning through a couple of rows, a head peeked out, a bit older, but with a timid gait you recognized.

You needed more information to be sure. There were many times all over the world you’d thought you’d seen him.

When the orange glow spilled over his suit, his face with his ancestral markings, and the warm, soft look in his eye un-morphed by time, you knew it was Jack. “Hello? Anybody there?” The sound of his voice, familiar and comforting was followed by a surprised cry. It took you a minute to realize it was yours.

“Hello?” Jack called, desperate. Apprehension pulled his shoulders into stiff peaks, ready to spring at the first sign of danger.

You forgot you were still cloaked and dissolved the spell. “Jack.” You breathed.

He stilled at the sound of your voice, just like he’d done all those years ago. “Amor?”

Cutting across the short distance between the two of you, you barreled into him, arms locked around his torso, drawing you as close as possible to him. He pressed you tightly against him, a sigh of happiness and heartbreak blowing against your ear.

He cupped the back of your head, stroking your hair. “You’re alive.” His whisper splintered as if broken by his disbelief.

You uttered his name against his chest, repeating it over and over again as if it were the first time you’d ever learned it. Maybe this was your way of relearning, trying to commit the way you said his name memory after letting it rest dormant. A name without a person to respond to it. It hurt.

But it was different now. Now he was right in front of you, holding you, whispering your name against your skin too. Your names weren’t figments of your imaginations anymore. They meant something tangible now.

Then came the tears. Both of your chests heaved in realization that you’d been alive and not together all those years. You’d spent time apart you could have spent together, lost time that didn’t have to be.

“Ted?” You’d garbled between hiccups.

Jack nodded his head, moving back from your embrace to cup your cheeks. “He’s alright.” His words warbled, but Jack was smiling. “We’ve been moving around together. I actually had to go save him a few nights ago.”

“Good.” You buried back into his chest giving your brain a chance to register that Jack was real and alive and holding you. “I’ve been coming here for years. I never saw anyone. I thought everyone was dead.”

Jack pulled you closer, pressing a warm, tender kiss against the crown of your head. “I thought so too. I couldn’t come back after…I thought it was too dangerous. Ted and I kept moving; it was safer.”

“That was smart.” You sniffed. “Worked just like we talked about.”

Some time passed in silence before you leaned back again, staring at his worried face. You needed breaks from his hold to see him, to piece back together all the features you were missing, just in case he disappeared again.

In the breaks of holding each other, Jack never broke eye contact, eyes shifting over your face too. It was like he was doing the same thing you were, creating new memories of your face where old ones faded. “I looked for you,” he mumbled. “I searched all over.”

“I’ve been looking for you for a century,” you whispered, reaching up to run your thumb against his still soft cheek. He looked the same as he did before, just a little older now, five years matured where he was supposed to be a hundred. “I never stopped.”

Jack nodded, eyes closing over fresh tears. “I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

“I know,” you sighed, reaching up to wipe away his tears. “But we’re here now. The moonflower is even still around.

Jack chuckled, his slowly opening eyes spilling over with tenderness. Then he sobered, his smile fading from his face. You frowned. “Jack?”

He sighed and reached for your hands, weaving them together. This felt like the beginning of bad news. You felt your stomach drop. “(name)?” he begins.

Jack hardly called you by your first name. One hundred years and he forgot that? Not likely, but maybe something else is going on. Does he not want to see you after everything that’s happened? Is there someone else in the picture?

Scenarios of Jack happy with someone else appeared before your eyes before you have a chance to stop them. Your eyes fell, and you forced yourself to stare at his hands to keep from being able to read what’s on your mind.

“It’s been a hundred years, and I thought I’d never see you again.” Jack’s voice carried an undercurrent of separation, warning you to prepare your heart early for his next words. “I know we’ve probably become different people in that time. I’ve changed, and you changed.”

Your heart began to tear. It sounded like he was going to say goodbye again, just after you found each other. This couldn’t be happening, but nevertheless, your chest tightened.

Jack huffed in frustration. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” You mumbled, refusing to look at him. “It’s alright. It’s not like we knew we were alive, right?”

Jack paused for a longer time than you thought he would, and his silence concerned you enough to look up. His eyes looked so broken it crushed you. “No. No, never, amor. You are everything.”

His hands rushed to cup your cheeks, drawing you closer so your noses were touching, breaths fanning out against each other’s skin. “I just…you’re so…it wouldn’t surprise me.” You reasoned, closing your eyes at the feel of his skin underneath yours. It drugged you, pulling you into his further, but even that wouldn’t be enough.

You needed time. You needed him beside you each morning from the rest of your lives forward. You needed the grounding feeling of his hand in yours. You needed so much more than just this one moment.

“What I was trying to say,” he breathed laboriously as if fighting the same stupefying spell you were. “Was that, if you were available, I want to spend all my time with you.” His half-lidded eyes, open in loving despair, locked on to you. “That is if there’s no one else.”

You chuckled. “Like they ever had a chance.” His answering smile echoed your grin as you pressed closer, confessing everything against his lips. “No one compares. They never have and they never will. I adore you. I’ve never stopped. Not for a day or an hour or a minute. You are everything to me.”

Your lips pressed together with a fervor of a kiss sanctified by time and made powerful through devotion. Everything you could never say, all the love you could never express, all joined as the stars watched.

The moonflower still grows; now there lay two more.

#Jack Russell #jack russell fic #jack russell x reader #jack russell fluff #jack russell drabble #werewolf by night #wwbn fic #wwbn #werewolf by night fic #werewolf by night fanfic #had to let this one marinate a little bit #hope you enjoyed it!#thanks for requesting!#this was sooo much fun!

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