Pitch stared down the boy in front of him, aquiline features contorted into something like anger. Silver-gold eyes were narrowed into slits as his brain tried to process the words he'd heard. "You're sorry?" The Nightmare King's voice hissed in the silence, cracking like a whip against the gray stone and black spaces, echoing in the empty cages and studded ceiling. The vacuum seemed to grow heavy in the moment after his speech, making the boy hunch into himself to ease it.

"Oh, sure!" Pitch flung his arms out, a cruel smile twisting thin lips. "You've apologized for what you've done; everything will be fine now, won't it? We'll be best friends and sing songs." The smile twisted into a scowl, arms dropping to his side in fists. "That's not how it works, Jack Frost!"

The wound inside him still stung sharply at the memory of his rejection in the frozen wastes, and one side of that pain enraged him. The other side took pleasure in the flinch that Jack Frost gave, the way he hid his face in plain guilt. It wanted to dig black claws in him and make him bleed all over gray stone (and the urge was so strong he almost did), make him hurt like he'd hurt him. Self-control was all that kept his fists from flying, that and self-preservation. If he hurt the boy it would bring the Guardians down upon him, and in his weakened state he would surely perish.

Except he hadn't been hurt. Pitch refused to acknowledge that being turned away had affected him in anyway. No one, no one, was to be able to affect him, not even this pale, scrawny boy.

Why does he…

bring back those memories?

Or her. His little girl…

"You wasted your chance, Frost. Now, get out of my home." He hissed. This conversation was over, gone, nothing but the wasted sands of time. A memory best left forgotten.

So many memories he wished forgotten

Pitch turned his back on him, intent on returning to his home. Sleep would be nice after this, dull the feelings he wasn't feeling and get this dragging day over with. He didn't expect to be stopped with a loud and vehement 'NO!' from Jack Frost. Though he should have, it was him after all, and nothing ever went right around him. The Nightmare King gritted his teeth against the grinding, grating feeling of annoyance that rolled over and wrapped around his spine. He should keep walking, ignore the shout, and let Jack Frost stew in his shame.

Even as every fiber screamed to continue walking and let the shadows whisk him away, his legs betrayed him. The dark colored man turned to face him, raking a bladed silver-gold gaze over Jack. The hunched over form was now standing straight, a cold frost fire of stubbornness in the blue that met his stare. Pitch was amused, back in a dark corner of his mind, tempered with just a touch of fondness and pride.

"No?"

Jack shook his head. "I'm not letting you brush me off, Pitch. I… I'm sorry, ok? I know you don't believe me, but I am. … What do you want me to do to make it up to you?" The Guardian's voice had started out so strong, convicted and ended with a whimper, the kind a kicked puppy gave.

A small groan was smothered at the boy's plea. This was a ploy, it had to be, the winter spirit playing his trickster games. "Make it up to me?" Pitch surged forward, looming over him. A shadow of the dark between stars, molten eyes the twin suns of the night.

Ink dark as space

The darkness crawled and slithered about the waifish form, caressing the edge of buckskin pants. It dyed the material black, creeping along as assuredly as the frost did where Jack touched his staff.

crept along the edges of his mind

In earlier times this would have spiked the air with foul fear but not now. Jack stood as if rooted, the stone tendrils keeping his back ramrod straight.

shadow of a fallen, foolish man

He grinned, as worry started to mix with the stubbornness.

There was so much he could ask for, so many ideas that raced through his mind. He could humiliate the Guardian in front of his so-called friends,

Watch their faces go slack with horror

drag him down into the darkest depths of misery; break that rod of will that was so infuriating and yet, at the same time, absolutely enrapturing and arousing.

Wrap him up in the shadows until fear was so overwhelming that he was nothing. A bare shell of what he was before and never would be again. Like him, like Pitch, like what he used to be. Never would be again. Because of them. He could hear the sickening shrieks around him, in the recesses of his memories, their laughter at the General that had been their greatest foe brought low to be their leader.

Nightmare King…

Carve misery into his skin, an ownership that none could refute, ignore, erase. Corrupt his core until fun was a distant, hazed and gray memory. Breathe nightmares into his essence, until his soul was so stained that it feared the light, that hope was broken and joy was an unbearable memory. Scoop out the bloody mess that was Jack Frost and replace it with the most obedient pet wrapped in silk shadows and azure gems, bound to his will and his words.

What came out of his mouth, however, was a pang of loneliness, a plea that he would never acknowledge as being his own. The shock on Jack's face bespoke of just how pitiful he really had become.

Would he take it back now that the stench was in the air, flavored in the tone of his voice?

Never.