Just as the King of Nightmares could have dreams, the Guardian of Dreams could have nightmares. Pitch didn't have to take personal responsibility for a nightmare to know it was there - Pitch knew people's greatest fears even if they were unaware of them while conscious, knew it before he knew those people's names or faces.
Fears were never nameless, and while he thrived on the taste of everyday anxiety and the development or expression of phobias, he loved most when those who led comfortable lives were betrayed in sleep by their own bodies. The students who found themselves in class with no clothes on; the gamers who hid from fungus-speckled monsters with a taste for delicate necks; the parents who could not stop their children from stepping off rooftops.
Sandy's nightmares were a source of unending inspiration to Pitch because they were few and far between, but so pure when they formed, black pearls in the middle of all that golden sand.
Sandy did not fear anything as pedestrian as blood or betrayal, or the deaths of friends and family. Sandy did not truly fear what he could see.
Sandy feared the empty spaces outside of his imagination - the unseen and unheard creature that hid around a corner, or watched him from a distant window. He feared looking down and finding the floor he walked on was no floor. He feared walking past the same person over and over and missing - or worse, catching - the split second moment where they changed their words, their expression, their skin.
Sandy feared what he might create if left to his own devices.
It was a clean fear that had no source beyond Sandy's own body choosing to make him tense up in his sleep, skin temperature dropping even as sweat started to pool in the crevices of his soft little form.
Pitch didn't watch the nightmares of the other Guardians, not up close. Bunnymund's and North's nightmares were repetitive, born of memories Pitch knew well, and Tooth's fairies guarded their mother viciously while she slept.
Jack's nightmares hit too close to home, as had Katherine's when she lived on Earth rather than the Moon. Nightlight's had been delicious, but in an entirely different way - they were sharp and electric, nightmares that left Pitch vibrant with energy and an urge to go out and destroy. Sandy's nightmares were indulgent - rich and syrupy creations that left Pitch feeling weighed-down and boneless with satisfaction.
.
Pitch sometimes provoked Sandy's nightmares further, on days when Sandy slept away from the mermaids and seashell warriors who protected his island. If Sandy had laid down on a roof, or stolen into an empty bedroom to sleep on top of unmade sheets, Pitch would catch up with the dreamweaver and straddle his chest, lowering his weight with care until the sensation of being trapped reached Sandy's nightmare. Pitch loved the tension of syncing up his own breath with Sandy's until the two of them rose and fell together on each inhale and exhale, the thrill of knowing Sandy could wake at any moment if he did not take care.
The nightmares took an intimate turn at those moments, often through Sandy being buried alive - he had not seen the dunes of his home world in millennia, but remembered their dangers as clearly now as he had in childhood - or locked in enclosed spaces. Sandy had never experienced the delights of one of Pitch's lead cages, never had his light extinguished by metal from the Earth's core, but Katherine's stories had painted a vivid picture of their dangers.
Sometimes there would be coffins, closets, refrigerators or wells, but the theme of being trapped remained the same.
Pitch liked those nightmares, but there were some he liked better still - nightmares where Sandy's cold sweat started to warm and his breath began to quicken, nightmares where shadowed hands pulled and pawed at him, and he feared what would be done to him almost as much as he feared he would enjoy it.
Pitch loved the taste of that fear before he slipped in a touch of his own influence, seeing how far he could push before Sandy would recognise his work. He hated to think of himself as predictable, and it was delicious to see what Sandy would allow before realising Pitch was there and granting permission to continue.
It wasn't that he had anything against having his way with Sandy once consent was freely given - he just liked feeding off the thrill of open fear as long as he could.
.
There were many forms through which he had approached Sandy. Giant spiders with eyes that glistened wetly, even in the dark, spinning webs to ensnare the dreamweaver and sinking fangs into his vulnerable flesh. Wasps with blank human faces and stings larger than the phallic threat they represented. Shapeless red mists that blinded and smothered and enveloped every inch of exposed skin.
No one on Earth had ever heard Sandy's voice, save for Pitch. Only Pitch had ever made Sandy scream.
Waking Sandy would defeat the purpose however, so Pitch liked to move after having enough of a taste of Sandy's fear, lifting away from Sandy's chest and kneeling over him instead, caging his sleeping form with legs and arms, sometimes with an additional shadow or two if daylight threatened to ruin the fun. He'd let Sandy dream of fighting back, or escaping, or bleeding out quietly. He'd let the nightmare in its purest form end.
Then he'd touch his fingers to a grain or two of dreamsand, enough to let him into a dream without corrupting it entirely, and he would press his lips softly to Sandy's forehead, close his eyes and slip into the comforting form of a villain who preferred seduction to violence.
Sandy's moods varied enough to keep his dreams entertaining; Pitch never quite knew whether he would be met by a coy and teasing version of his Sandman, perhaps even one who had dressed for the occasion in revealing clothes, or if he would be left breathless after being subjected to the full vicious force of Sandy's whips.
Sometimes he would even be defeated by them, Sandy beating him into submission, beating him until he enjoyed being beaten, and though it would be so very easy to push Sandy back into another nightmare, it was delicious to kneel for no better reason than because Sandy had made him kneel.
Pervert, Sandy would whisper into his ear, before a hand on the back of Pitch's head would urge him into showing what a well practised tongue could do.
.
Whether Sandy came outside of his dream was irrelevant, as long as Pitch satisfied his unconscious self. As to his own needs, they were similarly irrelevant until the dream was over, and even then he tended to deal with them through rough and fast strokes, no sentiment attached to the process.
Sandy's nightmares satisfied him in a way that orgasm couldn't, filling voids that hands would never reach. They renewed his purpose, inspired him more than any horror movie could, and let him go back out into the world feeling refreshed and ready to create.
He never asked whether the times his dreams took a turn for the adventurous gave Sandy a similar comfort. A small and bitter part of him knew Sandy enjoyed the dreams of others night after night, regardless of Pitch's involvement. The more sensible part of him figured that if the nightmares of a creature that rarely had them tasted sweetest, then the dreams of a creature that rarely dreamed had to be unique in their own way.
Besides, just as he took the energy from Sandy's nightmares to go out into the world and spread fear wherever he walked, on the occasions when Sandy had slipped into his own dreams Pitch would often wake to find the dreamweaver curled up at his side and snoring softly.
They gave and took in different ways, and in moments like this where the balance between them was even, Pitch would be hard pressed to call any of those methods wrong.