Laundry Day

"Good morning Jacqueline," Jack said, wandering into the kitchen.

"Morning Jack—oh. Uh…you okay?"

"Perfectly. Why do you ask?"

"Uh, no reason. I mean, your hair is looking a little flat."

"I did that on purpose."

"Okay, cool. The sweater too?"

"This is one of my favourite sweaters, Jacqueline."

Jacqueline cleared her throat, looking away. "It looks like it's too small for you."

"Hmm," Jack replied, grabbing the milk out of the fridge. "You sure that's all you had to say, sister dear?"

"I'm just trying to be nice," she said, shrugging.

"What's wrong with the sweater?"

"Aside from the fact that it looks like it may be too tight?"

"Come now, out with it."

"Alright, I'll be blunt. What the frost are you wearing Jack? You look like a train wreck!"

"Language."

"English?"

"You know what I mean."

"I dunno Jack, it seems like today is a topsy-turvy kind of day—it could mean anything. Have you looked in a mirror today?"

"Of course!" Jack replied, sounding offended. "Why wouldn't I look in a mirror?"

"Here, let me give you a list," Jacqueline said, putting down her phone and sitting up straighter in her chair. "Your hair is a bit more blue than usual and lacking a ton of it's normal pointy volume."

"I didn't feel pointy today," Jack retorted.

"You have a shiny silver scarf on that looks like the last thing people considered when designing it was keeping your neck warm," Jacqueline plowed on, ticking off the items on her fingers as she went.

"It's not a functional scarf, it's supposed to look flashy!"

"You're wearing a cozy light blue sweater with cute little snowflakes on it—"

"You don't have the monopoly on light blue!"

"Your coat matches your scarf and is just as thin as it, I doubt it would keep anyone warm at all—"

"Why do we need to stay warm? We're winter sprites."

"And I am very sure those pants are leather, and I am very concerned about that. Why do you own leather pants?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

It was silent for a brief moment, the snowy sprites staring each other down. Suddenly Jacqueline's eyes widened, and she smirked. "You're out of clean clothes to wear, aren't you?"

Jack made a low grumbling sound in his throat.

"Oh my gods you totally are!" Jacqueline said gleefully, beginning to laugh.

"It's not funny! I may have neglected to do laundry, that's true. And I may be out of clean suits, as a result. This old thing is quite literally all I have left to wear."

"That's saying something, since your pants are patched up."

"You know Jacqueline." Jack began, leaning on the island in front of her. "I could be walking around completely in the nude."

"Eugh," Jacqueline said, grimacing.

"Exactly." Jack turned away, busying himself with breakfast. It was silent, before Jacqueline began giggling again.

"What is it now?" he said, turning around only to see Jacqueline's phone in front of her face, pointed directly at him.

"Elle is going to have a field day!"

"Don't you dare take a photo—"

"Bernard's gonna crack a rib!"

"Jacqueline—"

"Santa's gonna loose it!"

Jack lunged to grab the phone, but it was too late; Jacqueline had snapped the picture and moved it away from Jack, leaving him leaning on the counter with one arm outstretched and a very angry pout.

"Delete that Jacqueline!"

"Over my melted body!"

"That can be arranged. Is that—that's Snapchat!"

"Yep!"

"Don't make it last long!"

"Of course not," Jacqueline replied, changing the timer from five seconds to the infinity symbol. She selected Elle's name on the list (and her story), saved the photo to her memories and clicked send, cackling the entire time.

"You are the worst sister I have."

"Thank you."

Silence reigned once more for a very brief moment.

"I wonder what Mrs. Claus will think of it?"

"Frostbite!" Jack swore.

"Language!" Jacqueline yelled back, still laughing.

Bernard nearly choked when Elle started laughing suddenly, nearly doing a spit take.

"You okay, Elle?"

The elf across from him began to turn red, as she gasped for breath. At Bernard's raised eyebrow, she turned her phone over to him to let him have a look.

A snap from Jacqueline had caused Elle to lose her tinsel over lunch; Bernard found himself slowly smiling, laughter bubbling up in his throat. Soon enough he, too, was laughing quite hard.

"What is he wearing?"

"Do you know what's even worse?" Bernard asked, not waiting for an answer as Elle gasped for breath. "He used to seriously wear this back in the early 1900s."

"No way."

"I wish I was joking! I hope you don't mind, but I screenshotted it."

Elle grinned. "I was going to do the exact same thing, to be honest."

"Great minds and all," Bernard said, winking.

While doing a round later that day with Santa, Bernard found himself laughing at the thought of the picture once more.

"What's so funny, number one?"

The elf blinked, clearing his throat to try and keep his composure. "A funny picture Jacqueline sent Elle earlier today," he replied, as they rounded the dollhouses.

"Must've been some picture."

"You would appreciate it," Bernard replied.

"Are you telling him about the picture, B?"

"Not all of it," Bernard replied, smiling as Elle approached. "I didn't want to spoil it for him."

"Here Sir," Elle said, pulling it up on her phone. "You have got to see this." She passed the phone to him, grinning.

"Is that Jack?"

"Yup!"

"What is he wearing?" Santa asked, ho-ho-ho-ing gleefully.

"The question of the day," Bernard replied.

"Carol is gonna love this!"

It wasn't long before Santa showed the picture to Carol, who very quickly had it printed and slid it into a scrapbook. She liked putting the silly candid shots in one place for the family to look at to have a little pick-me-up; her parents appreciated it, too. They were a nice little peak at the small moments that often went unnoticed in the North Pole, or missed.

Jack dressed like that, drinking out of the carton was definitely one of those pick-me-up moments, Carol thought, still laughing to herself.

"There we go, it's immortalized forever," Carol said.

Elle grinned, taking her thumb off of the record button on Snapchat. "Jacqueline's going to love this."

Sure enough, later that night as Jacqueline sat in her sitting room, opening the snap, she lost it all over again.

It wasn't long before (after looping the video once or twice), she rushed to Jack's room to show him what had become of the snap.

"You're the worst!" he shouted behind her, several snowballs chasing the giggling sprite out of his sitting room.

Of course, as per the norm, Jack was all talk. The fact of the matter was, the thought of Carol putting a silly picture of him in the family scrapbooks had made his night and warmed him right to his toes as he put away his nicely cleaned and pressed suits.

It was nice to be included.

A/N-Hi diddly ho pals! (Never let me type that again). In my editing spree I, uh, may have completely rewritten this Smile Shot and made it a lot more cute and heartwarming, whoops :D. I have so many little oneshots floating around and this is where I've panned on throwing them! A bit of context for this one: in TSC3 behind the scenes, there's a whole featurette on the original look planned for Jack Frost. They had this warm fuzzy sweater with snowflakes originally, but it made Marty look v friendly as Jack Frost and the kids as a result, were smiling at him and such instead of being weary. So they had to change the look, and that's how the hecking iconic zoot suit (as they refer to it several times) was born! This smile shot is a fun play on that bc the sweater was nice but the whole look was. Well, a bit of a trainwreck (just a tad) ;)

Reviews are appreciated! This'll be updating regularly throughout 2018 because I have a LOT of smile shots being finished up and primed to be posted-several already are up on tumblr!

Word Count: 1180

DISCLAIMER

I do not own The Santa Clause, Jack Frost or any other canon characters mentioned above. I am making no profit off of this, it is purely for my enjoyment as well as that of the readers. I do, however, own Crystal Springs and Jacqueline Frost, as well as her family: Blaise Frost, Winter Frost, Fino Frost and Fiera Frost. Any resemblance they bear to any specific person/place/thing is purely coincidental; please do not use them without MY permission.

I also do not own Elle. She belongs to Ana, aka etiquette-faux-pas. I am merely borrowing Ms Connelly and have vowed to return her (relatively) unharmed.