"I thought this might happen."
Jack stiffened at the familiar, cold voice, his scowl growing as he gripped the tooth box he had talked himself out of throwing with more intensity.
"They never really believed in you," the voice continued with indifferent composure, "I was just trying to show you that."
Jack turned his head ever so slightly, seeing the dark figure in his peripheral contrasting the permafrost with his monochromatic form. He didn't want to see him right now, or honestly ever again. Not after that encounter in the lair. Not after what he'd said.
"That I understand."
Jack gritted his teeth, his hand twitching around his staff as he raised it.
"You don't understand anything!" Jack spun and struck out with his staff, the spray of sharp frost deflected easily with a cloud of midnight-black sand that dropped to the ground swiftly with the weight of it.
"You think I don't know what it's like to be cast out?"
The voice had lost its even tone, Pitch's hands clawed as he shot a stream of blackness at Jack that he barely blocked with a wave of ice crystals. Jack only yelled in response, leaping back off the ice shelf with lithe legs and letting out all his frustration and rage in one sharp swing of his shepherd's crook. He sent a near-blizzard of ice, fuelled by his raging emotions and shattered heart at the Nightmare King, his staff crackling with the sheer energy of it.
The world seemed to slow down as Pitch's wall of sand and Jack's ice collided, the snow around them flying up with the downward force and forming a deep fog as it drifted slowly down.
"To not be believed in?" Pitch's voice cried out from the mist, demanding his rapt attention, "To long… for a family?"
Jack twisted to see Pitch, the white haze slowly settling upon the ground and his clothes, joining the curls of frost across his dirty blue hoodie. The hazy, smudged figure looked genuine, his bright gold eyes wide as he held out his hands in a gesture of peace. Jack lowered his staff somewhat after he saw that, still keeping a wary eye on the Shadow and a tight grip on his frost-covered crook.
"All those years in the shadows…" the voice was soft, attention-grabbing in its sincerity, "I thought 'No one else knows what this feels like'."
Jack's eyes widened, Is he trying to manipulate me… or is Pitch telling the truth? He couldn't tell for the life of him, but he wished it was true, he wished with all his heart that someone knew how he felt, even in the tiniest way.
"But now I see… I was wrong."
Jack lowered his staff entirely, all wariness gone as Pitch circled behind him, gesturing to accentuate his points, "We don't have to be alone, Jack."
The word 'alone' bounced around Jack's head for a long moment, its familiar grip filling his mind until he grasped at the rest of the sentence, his mouth slightly agape as he thought about it. Not alone. It was something staggering and downright impossible.
"I believe in you, and I know children will too!"
The words hit him like a freight train, cracking the icy bauble he'd spun around his heart to protect him from his lonely 300 years. He forgot it was Pitch he spoke to for a moment, that he was likely just manipulating him into doing what he wanted- betraying the guardians, spreading nightmares and endless winters.
But no one believed in him anyway- not North, or Tooth, or Bunny. No one believed in Jack Frost.
"In me?" Jack whispered, his voice barely containing his disbelief.
Pitch grinned, his voice filled with excitement easily comparable to a young child on Christmas Day, "Yes!"
Jack flinched as he felt Pitch's slender hand rest on his shoulder, radiating warmth outwards and melting the tenuous ice curls across his hoodie.
"Look at what we can do!"
Pitch pointed upwards, and Jack's eyes followed from the Nightmare King to what he would have to say was the of the most beautiful things he'd made- or had a part in making.
It stood apart from the other ice structures, all weathered and smoothed from years of rushing winds- It was jagged, the black dust of so many children's nightmares swirling under iridescent ice that glittered in the faint light peeking through the thick, bleached clouds. Still-falling snow swirled around the peaks of razor-sharp ice and coated them in white diamond dust. It rose from the nevermelting ice like a mountain of spikes and fear-charged blackness.
It was strikingly beautiful.
"What goes together better than cold and dark?"
Jack flinched, having already forgotten the presence of the King of Nightmares in his astonishment at his own capabilities. The taller man's ashen hand slipped away from his shoulder like melting water, the idle terror of its presence forgotten.
Pitch's voice was charged with excitement as he gestured his arms out wide, filled with what could only be described as hope.
That was when Jack felt his heart sink. He'd destroyed hope singlehandedly. He'd stolen belief away from Bunny and left crushed eggshells and shattered belief in his wake. He was no better than the Nightmares he fought.
"We can make them believe!"
Jack's head slowly sank to where he could see the figure behind him reflected on the ice, the Boogeyman's narrow features lifted in elation as his voice echoed deafeningly off non-existent walls. His eyebrows drew together as he thought about the concept of being able to be believed in at all. There was an insurmountable barrier between him and belief, and he thought about the dark way Pitch would shatter it, had already begun to shatter it.
Jack's mind was drowning in deeper and deeper contemplation until he heard Pitch speak again.
"We can give them a world where everything-"
The grey-skinned man was almost laughing as he stepped out from behind the twisted ice sculpture, his silver lips split in a grin.
"-everything is-"
"Pitch Black?"
The question left Jack's mouth immediately, without his thought playing into it at all. Pitch's face froze as his arms drew in almost defensively, golden eyes seeming to fade almost unnoticeably into a cooler silver.
"…And Jack Frost, too."
Pitch pointed at him as if to affirm that he existed, was part of this. Jack could not help but question the motives of such a proposition. So far, Pitch was winning the fight.
"They'll believe in both of us."
Jack stepped forward, shaking his head, affirming to himself what he wanted, "No. They'll fear both of us, and that's not what I want."
Turning away from Pitch was a gesture of finality- as much as he desired belief, craved it, wanted it more than anything, he had to earn it. How, he didn't know. Maybe he never would, but he would never have to spread fear. He knew what fear felt like, was always numbed by it, and he could never wish that on anyone.
"Now, for the last time- leave me alone."
He could feel Pitch's eyes on his back, could almost feel Pitch be consumed by anger as the atmosphere grew charged. He kept walking, knowing that if he turned he would not be able to bear it.
"Very well." The voice had lost any vestige of empathy, now just the low, disdainful purr that had become so familiar.
"You want to be left alone?" the words were cutting, Pitch knowing all too well what Jack feared, "done."
"But first…"
The pained squeaks were felt more than heard, driving cold knives of fear into his heart that sent his head snapping around to the source with wide eyes and lost breath.
"Baby Tooth!"
Her birdlike head poked out of a grey fist, the bright, tropical colours that adorned her body so bright and out of place against black robes and thin ashen fingers. She called out to him in indistinct chirps, a panic filling each sound that made Jack's fear grow. He knew that Pitch would be feeding off of it, but that thought flew by in a torrent of rushing emotions, in the ache of betrayal.
The fist tightened around her fragile body and Jack's staff came up without a thought, pointed squarely at Pitch's chest with fierce determination. If he hurt her-
"The staff, Jack!"
Dread pooled in Jack's gut, mixing with anger and panic and fear so acute it made his shoulders tighten and his legs tremble. His eyes fell to his only possession, his only link to anything real. He couldn't give it up, but if he didn't…
"You have a bad habit of interfering."
Pitch's voice was darkly amused, a cold leer covering his features. There was nothing left of the man he'd seen only moments before, who had offered him belief. This was the stuff of nightmares, the embodiment of fear and betrayal.
His grip tightened on his weapon.
"Now hand it over, and I'll let her go."
Baby Tooth shook her head urgently, but Jack couldn't accept that she would ever be less important than his staff- she was a friend, a living being who he had only known for such a short time but it was enough. He had known so very few people. Pitch's grip tightened again as if sensing the thought, threatening.
Jack wanted to unleash a blizzard right there and then, but it wouldn't solve anything. Frozen water and icy wind would only lead to pain- his and hers. Pitch would never let her live if he gave such an outburst. For only a moment, Jack pictured what would happen if he refused, imagined the screaming and agony and how it would kill him inside, rip him apart. His teeth gritted in frustration and anger, his body tense as a bowstring as he gripped his staff tightly, fingers clawed over its rough surface.
And he lowered it.
Baby Tooth squeaked something that sounded like a mix of disappointment and relief, but he was unhearing.
He held the staff, feeling its weight, the familiar way it rested in his cold hands- and swung it to hand it to Pitch, handle first.
Pitch grabbed it eagerly, the staff seeming to darken as soon as it touched that silver hand. Jack's hands felt empty, felt his powers diminish and withdraw at the loss of it.
"Alright, now let her go."
His voice was hollow and cold, something that felt almost like betrayal seeping into him. Had he done the right thing?
The shadowmancer smiled, raising his eyebrows as he shrugged playfully, Baby Tooth in one hand and his shepherd's crook in the other, "No."
Jack widened his eyes in shock before his features set into anger again, ice crackling ever so slightly at his fingertips. Pitch lowered the staff at Jack, pointing at him with the darkened wood.
"You wanted to be alone. So be alone!"
Baby Tooth stared up Pitch with eyes widened in shock. His grip had loosened ever so slightly- she could just move enough to do something, and it was only moments before her large eyes narrowed and her beak drove sharply into Pitch's thumb.
Pitch jumped, gasping at the unexpected pain and all too quick to throw Baby Tooth away like some unwanted toy, his teeth gritting in raw, uncontrolled anger.
"No!" Jack yelled after her, pain turning his voice raw. He was unable to fly without his staff and all too helpless. Her tiny form hit the wall of ice hard, and he whipped back to Pitch to see the man holding his staff across his body, two hands bending the wood as if he was going to-
Snap.
The pain was immediate, sharp agony lancing through his whole body as he grabbed at his stomach instinctively, icy eyes opening wide, as if he could tear it out, make it stop. A thick gasp left his throat as it only intensified, raging through him.
It was burning pain and infernos and cold fire that ran through his veins quickly, devouring feeling and eating away at his thoughts until they were all gone, consumed, and he screamed out his breath as blackness struck at him, the sting of it nothing compared to the overwhelming surge of lightning through his veins.
He was all too willing to let his eyes slip closed under the influence of the sand as he tumbled senseless into the snow.