They are alone.
Jack has followed him out of North's stronghold at the Pole, and they stand at one of the peaks, looking out over the wintry skies. It's no wonder Jack can feel so at home here, with the everlasting winter of these lands, and the merriment of Santa Clause's workshop. For Pitch Black, it's not so simple; he has to work at finding the right dark corners to feel at home in, and his room has but the one window to look out upon the drifting snow, the rest is shrouded in darkness. He misses his realm of shadows, but wonders if today has changed his right to be in it once more.
Does this mean he's free?
Pitch raises his hand, looks at it as if it has betrayed him, when all it did was hold itself up while he swore his life. Really, it was his mouth that betrayed him. Or something else – someone else – entirely. His dark eyes shift over to the Guardian standing next to him, and the grin on Jack's face tells him everything he needs to know.
"You put them up to this," he accuses, and he's not sure if he's angry about it. His tone is more petulant for the moment, which only seems to feed Jack's amusement.
"You think I coulda put North up to this if he wasn't already thinking of it himself?"
Pitch actually wonders about that, but instead says, "You came up with the idea."
"Of course I did. You shoulda seen the look on Bunny's face. I thought it would take him til next Easter to get his jaw up off the ground."
"Why on earth would you suggest to them that I become a Guardian, Jack? It's absurd. You do recall why they kept me under 'house arrest' in the first place, don't you?"
Jack scoffs, waving his hand as if it isn't a big deal at all, business as usual. "Of course I do. But they also kept you here because you belong here." With me, goes unspoken, but the focus of his gaze on Pitch leaves it heavily implied.
Unable to resist, his hand betrays him once more, reaching out to Frost and taking his chin between two slender fingers to peer into his face. "Do I now?"
"You do. Family, remember?"
Pitch feels his face twist into a sneer, and he lets go of Jack's face before he's tempted to kiss the lips talking nonsense. He sighs long-sufferingly, thinking it's just like the his lover to hear what he wants to hear. Doesn't he realize that part of those dreadfully emotional words had merely been a means of swaying Jack to his side? What use does the Bogeyman have for family, and furthermore, what good is he at being a Guardian. His dark heart is suited for much more depraved things besides protecting children who would rather believe in gift-bearing, candy-toting do-gooders than anything that could ever hurt them. No child, to his knowledge, has ever said, 'I sure do hope the Bogeyman drops down my chimney tonight. I left him milk and cookies!' Pitch is entirely convinced that the ceremony to swear him in as a Guardian is a joke. What did North's eyes see in one such as him?
"I know that look," Jack says, putting his hands on his hips and unrepentantly interrupting Pitch's inner monologue. The lift to his eyebrow only encourages him. "You really don't get it, do you? How you fit in? You said it yourself."
"Do elaborate," Pitch says, crossing his arms.
"I'll do better than that. I'll show you." Jack sticks two fingers in his mouth and lets out a shrill whistle.
It is perhaps a sign Pitch has let him get too close to him when merely that two-note call, stirs his chest, prods at his power. In moments, he can hear the answering call of his dearest Nightmare, and she springs from her sleep to join them on the ledge. Pitch's eyes narrow as she bumps a shadowy snout against Jack's cheek before trotting to his side. He lays a hand on her flank. "I take it we're going somewhere."
Jack sweeps his staff in a motion of grandeur, and the wind lifts him. "Of course. Come on."
He doesn't wait for Pitch to accept, merely assuming the king of shadows will follow him, and like the hopeless bastard he is, he finds himself swinging himself onto Nightmare's back with a sigh. Pitch needs not give any direction before he's in motion, following after Jack, chasing clouds and watching the youngest Guardian ride in loop-de-loops while his ecstatic shouting drifts back to them off the mountain peaks. They head further away from the sun, finding themselves slipping into the night. Pitch looks behind them a few times, wondering if one of the other Guardians will come after them for leaving. Pitch hasn't seen other lands since his 'arrest' quite some time ago. He supposes becoming a Guardian himself has changed the parameters of his imprisonment, perhaps banishing them altogether.
He still wonders if it's a trick.
Pitch sees the glow of a campfire on the ground below, and moments later, the wind dies down so that Jack can land not far from where it was. There are voices carrying over to them, but they're a good distance away. Jack shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and looks up at him as if just being there should explain everything. When Pitch patiently waits for him to realize he is supposed to be elaborating, Jack is the one to let out the exasperated sigh. But he's smiling, and that always makes his childish actions much more endearing than they really ought to be.
"Back when you were spewing all that crap about being alone and wanting family just to get me to join you in your plans of world domination—"
Pitch doesn't even care to look guilty for being called out on it because he isn't.
"—you said something else."
"I say a lot of things, Jack. I'm known for being rather verbose when I'm trying to get my point across. Perhaps you should be getting your point across."
"Don't be such a spoil sport," Jack admonishes him, leaning in close, bumping his shoulder against Pitch. "The buildup is more fun this way."
"Of course. Fun."
"'Look at what we can do.'" Jack trots around him like the brat he is, doing a rather good impression, if Pitch does say so himself. It had been a beautiful argument for them to join forces. "'What goes better together than—'"
"Cold and dark, yes, I remember."
"Well." Jack makes eye contact right on cue, but the sincerity in them stirs that something at the core of Pitch some might call a heart. He refers to it as something decidedly more intimate and probably not suitable for most people. He tries not to be affected, but he's already too late. "You were right."
"Come again."
"No, you come." Jack's icy hand slides in Pitch's own, already knowing just how to get the fit right, to twine his fingers between the nightmare king's, black and white. "It's not cold and dark we're best at."
They draw towards the fire, and now the forms of six young children sitting around it become very clear. They're hunched over, straining to hear as one talks in a low, spooky voice. Jack brings them as close as he dares, putting a finger to his lips and nodding his head that they should listen. It takes a moment for the language to become clear to Pitch, filtering through his mind until he can understand it, and he hears something about a ghost. The child is really into his own telling, leaning close to the fire so that he casts a shadow on the ground, raising his hands so his distorted shadow looks like a monstrous shape. One of the other children whimpers and clings to the one next to her, but she doesn't try to stop the story, doesn't try to run. In fact, all of them are so beautifully creeped out that when Pitch's skin warms, it's not from the fire. His breath catches.
They are afraid. And they love it.
He watches, that feeling builds up inside of him as he rides on the climax of a child's ghost story, unable to deny how much it gets to him. Jack is surely watching closely, feels the way his grip tightens, the way his eyes narrow and flash like quicksilver in the firelight. Something about knowing Jack is at his side heightens the effect, his partner having expertly played him by coming here tonight. He supposes that's a hell of a way to make his point, and he doesn't mind it much. He'll be sure to show his gratitude after they depart. But for the moment, he's enthralled. It isn't even perhaps the best horror story he's ever heard, certainly his most basic darklings could stir up a better scare, but that doesn't seem to matter to the children who are cowering against each other until the very last moment.
The end is a classic scare tactic, the storyteller jumping from the log he has been sitting on with a roar, making everyone else jerk so hard. One of the girls lets out a high-pitched scream that makes Pitch's knees weak, and the next thing he knows Jack is on his toes to press a kiss to his mouth so he can swallow the noise he would have surely let out otherwise. A moment later, the scare is forgiven, and the children are laughing, shoving each other playfully, teasing about who was the most scared.
"You see?" Jack murmurs, his lips still so close Pitch feels the words as much as he hears them. "You were right. Look what we can do. It's not cold and dark, Pitch. It's fear and fun."
In a rare moment of speechlessness, Jack's kisses become more demanding, making Pitch focus on him instead of the children now. They are putting out the fire so they can go home, still playful and charged up from their time around the fire. Their voices are quickly fading to the back of Pitch's awareness with the line of Jack's body pressed so firmly against his. His arms encircle his lover, and he lets himself be dragged into this moment, and he's only barely aware of the slight tremble in his spine. He's had a taste and he finds himself very hungry for more. As if it's something Jack can sense, and sometimes Pitch doesn't doubt that he can, Jack begins to sink to the ground, hands firm on Pitch, he takes the man down with him. He lays back, lungs filled with woodsmoke and frost, feeling the weight of Jack straddling his hips. Those hauntingly blue eyes look down on him when the kissing stops.
"You're a Guardian now." Jack's finger presses to Pitch's mouth to quiet any sarcasm that might slip out. The winter spirit knows him all too well. He nips with sharp teeth and Jack's smile widens because of it. "Because fear is sacred too, Pitch." He trails his finger along the line of Pitch's jaw, down the side of his throat, and now all Pitch can see through hungry, narrowed eyes is Jack. He's all Pitch can feel, see, breathe, want. "Without fear, people don't question things. They don't wonder about their choices, they don't respect dangerous things, they can't appreciate being safe."
"I am not safe, Jack."
"But you are. I'm safe with you because you taught me to be scared. You showed me how to be afraid of what I didn't know, afraid of losing what I had, you are the Guardian of my fear, and now you're that same Guardian for the rest of the world."
"I should hope not quite the same as I am to you."
Jack throws his head back and laughs, it is an intoxicating sound. "I asked them to think about it. I asked them to ask him." He jerks his thumb behind him, where the half-moon cast a silver glow on snow white skin and dusty-ice hair. "They can't deny the truth, not even Bunny." He leans down and his mouth follows the trail his finger has just been down.
Pitch sucks in his breath, his head tilting back, his eyes unfocused because he's too fixated on Jack and his words. Perhaps it isn't a trick. His hands move of their own accord, he needs the feel of cold skin against him, he's burning up, and he soothes his touch beneath Jack's coat. Presses his fingers between the spaces of his ribs, feels cool lips working a mark into his ashen skin. He's drowning, he feels alive, real. Believed in.
"Let me remind you," Jack murmurs over his heart, and it races beneath the words, "what else we can do."
Pitch is not about to say no.