A/N: This has been in my fic folder for like forever (like I'm talking since a week after the movie came out) and I was just like eh screw this and decided to put it up. There are three other parts after this, detailing a meeting with each other guardian, the last being Tooth herself. So. Yep. I already have it all done, so no pressure there. I'll also try to regularly update, pending motivation to edit each part.

Acclimation

Part I

It started off slowly, so slowly that none of them were even able to believe it at first.

Sure, there were a couple more arguments cropping out between him and Bunnymund-but to be honest, it simply wasn't a guardian meeting without the two of them threatening to cut each other down to size. Just cause they were both charged with protecting the children of the world didn't mean that they actually had to get along.

Still, someone should have realized that was a little more of the frost guardian to cut down.

To this day, North would bellow and claim that he was the first to notice and it was with a certain touch of exasperation that the rest no choice to agree with the Santa's statement. Even if it meant having to put up with the smug bastard. Like he didn't already have the whole Christmas thing to boost his ego. See, Old St. Nicholas had seen it come a little ways after the boy had been instated as a guardian, give or take a decade. Or two. Eh, immortality wore on your time-telling skills a little.

Jack had been prowling around the outskirts of the workshop again, gathering up the courage to launch another full frontal assault to get inside. (Even though he already had full permission to use the front door. It seemed that some things were simply a matter of pride.) True to form, he had gotten rather close before the yetis had found him. Again.

North found himself disturbed in the middle of a particularly delicate operation involving a model airplane and several belligerent elves, the solid wooden door to his private office banged open. As he cursed and fumbled around trying to collect the pieces of his failed experiment, a certain white mess was quickly deposited onto his carpet.

"Jack."

A smirk. "Santa."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, North sent away his yetis with a wave of his hand, trying very hard not to notice the way Jack looped his cane around the leg of a yeti named Phil and nearly sent him sprawling.

"Dwbard urghwetee!" Phil retorted as he shot a nasty glare, or the closest thing to it in yeti form, at the snickering kid as he left. North hoped the two didn't hurt each other too badly later. Yeti labor didn't come cheap. Well, it did, but there was no need to make them question their loyalties.

Sighing loudly, North repeated, "Jack?"

The frost guardian in question looked back at him with wide eyes, seemingly the paradigm of innocence. It didn't fool the bulky Santa for a moment.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be, some children to make happy?" North not-so-subtly hinted at younger boy.

Jack shrugged and replied, "Nah, not really. I mean, you guys are all cool and stuff with your 'deadlines'," He rolled his eyes and held his fingers up to put quotes around the seemingly outlandish word, "but man, I just gotta have fun and make sure kids have some fun too."

North's face twitched ominously. "And you still chose to invade my workshop two days before Christmas, why?"

A familiar grin that described exactly how Jack had become current record-holder of the naughty list crept onto his face. "Cause it's fun, duh."

There was a moment of silence as the bearded guardian tried to rationalize away the sudden urge to sic his elves on Frost. North pointed to the door. "Out."

No matter how satisfying it would be to watch the boy struggle in a pile of red and putrid elves, he would probably just find a way to reverse it on him. And after the last incident he would rather not chance such a thing, especially since the elves were still mumbling about their failed attempt to unionize.

Jack rose to his feet easily and with a quick burst of artic wind, his signature grin never leaving his face for a moment. North watched him carefully, the cogs turning in his head as he finally registered the lack of a certain someone. As Jack started to leave, his cane dragging on the floor and creating a trail of ice that would take hours to melt off completely, North added nonchalantly, "Besides, you should best be preparing for the next guardian meeting. In a week."

Jack stilled for a moment, tensing up as he said suspiciously, "There's no guardian meeting for the next couple months. Bunnymund told me."

So the boy had already been to see the Easter Bunny. North shook his head pityingly and lied, "It's a celebratory meeting. After Christmas. We have them every couple years. Eh, Bunnymund must have just neglected to tell you. He does that to people he wants to push off cliffs."

"Oh." There was no trace of anything other than vague interest in his statement, certainly no hint of the relieved sigh Jack let loose, or the way he relaxed at the mere mention of meeting up with the other guardians.

North knew that he should just leave it at that, but he couldn't help but adding softly, "I'm sure Babytooth is fine. Her too."

There was a pause where the room turned frigid—which was saying something as they were currently the North Pole. A quick snort signaled a return to the previous temperature, and Jack turned with a smile, his white hair falling to the side as he tilted his head and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

North eyed him back critically, taking in the sudden happy gleam in the younger guardian's eyes with interest, knowing for a fact that it hadn't been there when the boy had come in. "Yes, I am sure you don't."

Despite his nonchalance, Jack was quick to leave, his shoulder brushing that of a yeti stationed outside the door—Phil—and leaving icy residue on its fur. North watched with growing amusement, noting that the boy certainly hadn't been able to do that a few months ago, certainly not without using his cane to even reach to abominable beast's shoulder.

Stroking his beard softly, old Nicholas couldn't help but chuckle.

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