Pull Out the Old Ways

The snowflakes danced about Jack's fingers before he pushed his hand out. The gust of snow swirled and shot down straight down and picked up one of the yeti who was carefully brushing a muscled reindeer. The yeti (Jack was pretty sure his name was Wes) floundered in the air, eyes wide with confusion until they settled on Jack who was perched on the roof of the stables.

Jack snickered at the warbled threats flung his way, then flicked his fingers, dropping Wes in a large snow bank. He beat a hasty retreat out of fear that the retaliation might involve the flinging of reindeer waste. His flight took him back inside the warmth of North's Workshop. He skirted around the globe, whose lights were shining strong, then moved on to the main area.

The yetis – and elves by default, though they were only messing mindlessly with decorations and broken toys – were in full swing, carefully assembling popular toys and paying astute attention to the delicate decorating process. The air was suddenly alive with uniform jingling as elves began flooding the workstations, bearing plates of cookies and mugs of eggnog.

Jack circled overhead a few times before settling lazily on a rafter beam. He liked hanging at North's the best because of the energy, the life. Sandy's island was very solitary, Bunny's giant stone eggs were no fun to play with, and while Tooth's palace was lively, her fairies were too hyperactive. Plus, Jack had a feeling she'd kill him if he ever tried to freeze any of the delicate intricacies of her domain for a little fun.

His cool eyes spotted North discussing a new project with Phil, pointing up overhead in a tall gesture. North then spotted Jack and called, "You have watch today, my friend! You should be shooing, yes?"

Jack groaned as he floated down to him. "It's not like I'm going to be late or anything."

North shook his head and turned back to the blueprints.

Booooring, Jack's mind supplied as he turned around, looking for a way to amuse himself. In all honesty, he was hoping to get out of the watch today. He was pretty sure no one had told Pitch it was his idea to let the Nightmares run free, but he knew Pitch was way to sharp to not suspect him.

With a final glance back at his jolly friend, Jack took to the outdoors and caught a breeze.

He was always amazed at how lukewarm Pitch's lair felt. It certainly wasn't cold enough to his liking, but the bit of warmth that existed didn't bother him in the slightest. However, something was off. The ever pervading silence that Jack was usually greeted by still remained, yes, but it didn't feel…right.

Not that silence usually should have a feel to it, but Jack was pretty used to the silence in Pitch's lair being still and lifeless. Now it felt like it was alive. He didn't know how it could be like that, but the quiet just didn't sit right with him this time around.

He had a right to be cautious.

The moment he touched down, he felt something wrap tightly around his feet, and a hot, searing brand of fear and terror ripped through his stomach. He yelled and slammed his staff down, freezing the shadows that were suddenly lunging at him with thick tendrils and hungry hollow eyes. He had never seen these things before, and they certainly weren't made of the dark dream sand of Pitch's design.

Angrily, he swung his staff out and blasted a large wave of creatures that were swooping down on him. They shattered when he slammed his weapon into it, but more rose up, swirling, the silence no longer silent but filled with shrieks far more terrible than those of the Nightmares.

He was doing fine on his own, growing more enraged by the second at the thought that he had allowed this, had allowed Pitch the chance to gain his strength, but he missed the snaking shadows that wrapped around his wrist and squeezed.

Jack grunted and found himself staring into white, burning holes of emptiness.

No!

Now was not the time to allow fear to bubble up in his throat. He pulled his staff in front of him and roared, and felt that familiar crack of lightening laced with frost flow through him, out the staff, ending the shadows which surrounded him.

He took a moment to breathe, but it was too short, as he saw more melting down the walls, more burning eyes staring at him, hungering after him.

"Bring it," he snarled, then skipped back as something rose up directly in front of him. His eyes widened. "Pitch."

The Boogeyman clearly didn't hear his exhaled name, for his face was turned upward, and though Jack couldn't see his eyes, he could see the tension in his frame. Pitch raised one hand and swept it across, and the shadows shrieked and lifted up off the walls, writhing about each other, but they did not venture closer.

"Be gone," Pitch hissed, and they dispersed and fled down the tunnels, leaving the lair in that familiar still silence.

Jack shifted, and Pitch whirled, mouth fixed in a sneer, but upon seeing the frost spirit, all the tension seemed to flow from his body. "Oh."

"Oh?" Jack repeated, getting riled up. "That's what you have to say?" And his anger was divided equally, because while the shadows had been Pitch's creations – he assumed – Jack had definitely provided the man with a food source.

Pitch became lax, a blank gaze on his face as him glided past him. "Well, I was wondering what could have riled them up, but I see it was of no concern."

"Hey!" Jack raced after him as he glided over the floor and down a tunnel that wasn't as dark as the rest. "Hold up, what the hell was that?" He glanced up and was surprised to see that the ceiling was far taller than he had expected, and when he squinted, he could make out elegant, yet worn carvings etched into the stone. It wasn't a tunnel, but a corridor.

"I do believe I've told you before to clarify your questions." Pitch paused in front of a door that had a warm glow leaking from beneath it. The doorframe was covered in raised spirals, and the handle was a curved circlet with similar spirals embedded in it. Jack didn't even know that there were doors like this around here, but he couldn't allow himself to become distracted.

Through gritted teeth, he growled, "Those weren't your usual Nightmares. They weren't even made of dream sand. What were they?"

Pitch considered his words, then said lowly with a small smirk, "Fearlings."

Jack had never heard of them, but Pitch was already pushing open the heavy wooden door and stepping in. Jack was surprised to see that the warm light flooding the tunnel originated from a fireplace. He, to Pitch's displeasure, poked his head in and took a look around.

A few half-bookshelves ran around the room, full of books with cracked spines and yellowing pages. There were classics and books of knowledge, many in various languages. A small writing desk was pushed up against the far wall to the left; it didn't look like it got much use, but it was kept in a neat, orderly fashion. A nice coffee table split the space between two large arm chairs, all standing on a thick, richly embroidered rug. The golden patterns stood out on the black base, and Jack found his eyes tracing the lines before raising them to see the whole picture for what it was: a small sitting room.

"Didn't know you had something other than doom and gloom around here," Jack said with surprise.

A warm hand clamped down on the back of his neck and flung him out. He bumped against the wall and immediately touched the skin Pitch had been in contact with, wondering at the warmth. He was used to the warmth he felt from his fellow Guardians, but this feeling was rather different. He looked at Pitch's hands, wondering if he could get away with just reaching out and brushing those fingers…

Pitch, however, snapped, "I'm busy."

Suspicious, much? Jack pointed his staff at him. "You do realize that North gave me permission to investigate any weird activity, right?"

"Oh, yes," Pitch lilted, leaning forward. "Having a fire lit in a quiet room is quite disturbing." His tone hardened. "Stay out."

Jack was about ready to barge into the room, but a soft, feminine voice made him pause.

"It's quite alright if he comes in for a listen."

Pitch's lip curled up in a sneer and he didn't budge. Jack watched as a lithe figure, almost as tall as the Nightmare King, rose up from one of the chairs and turned slowly. He found that his breath was stolen quite easily by the small, heart-shaped face; the black hair curled close to her shoulders; the full, pink lips; the dark eyes half hidden by thick lashes. She was petite in the black dress that hugged her, and she raised a pale hand to him with a soft smile.

Jack took a step forward, but Pitch's voice cut through the fog that was slowly beginning to envelope his mind.

"Unfortunately, he is not one for you to use. Should he go missing, the interlopers upstairs would throw a fit."

Jack blinked. His head felt much clearer now, and the woman seemed a little disappointed. He didn't like the look. He didn't want her to be disappointed, but Pitch seemed to let out an exasperated sigh. "As you can see, I have company, Frost, and I do hope you will not keep me from her."

Jack flushed. "Does North know you have visitors?"

Did that smarmy bastard just roll his eyes? "No, though I suppose you will go tell him, won't you?"

The woman in black smiled kindly, easing Jack's heart. "It's quite alright, dear. I'm well acquainted with Nicholas. Perhaps I should visit him."

Pitch seemed to find this amusing, as he chuckled darkly. "Well, Frost? Shall you pretend to be mature and listen to the grownups talk?"

Jack grimaced and twirled his staff. "No thanks. Think I'll just float around until you're done."

"I won't be long," the woman promised.

Jack found himself being shoved out of the corridor by shadows pushed straight from Pitch's hand. He turned to glare, but the Nightmare King was already shutting the door behind him, cancelling out the golden light, save a small sliver along the floor.

Jack did as he promised, floating around the lair, taking high dives from the tallest slanted bridges and weaving his way through the hanging cages and clinging stalagmites. He iced the walls, slicked up the pathways, raised his staff and caused it to snow in a perfect circle right in the middle of the floor. By the time he was finished making a snowman, he wondered if he could get away with putting icicles on the cages. If the light caught them in the right way, they'd glisten like candles. He chuckled as he poked rocks into the snowman's head.

Yeah, Pitch could do to brighten up the place. It's a wonder he's even got a lady here—

"Are you quite finished yet?"

He spun and found Pitch looking at his creation with all the disgust and loathing in the world. Jack cast him a lopsided grin. "Just about. You like?"

The expression didn't change. "No."

Jack caught movement in the corner of his eye and saw the woman in black moving along a bridge. Was that one of the ones I iced? He shot up there and saw that, yes, it definitely was, and holy shit, she was slipping—

Jack caught her easily, marveling in how thin her waste was in his arm. She looked up and smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

"N-no, no," Jack stuttered, helping her stand upright. "It was my fault. I was just playing around, sorry."

"Well, well," a voice breathed too close for comfort. Jack skipped back from the looming shade. "Isn't this cute. The little frost spirit is flustered by a woman?"

"Oh, don't tease him," the woman said, continuing her walk towards a grate of pale light.

"But it's simply adorable," Pitch crooned, sidling up to Jack's side and leering down at him. The woman didn't seem displeased that Pitch was mocking Jack. She continued on to the grate and waved a hand. The bars disappeared and she stepped up into it, tall and proud.

"It was wonderful seeing you," she said. "Expect another visit from me soon." To Jack, she nodded, and then vanished in the pale light.

...Okay, the hell just happened?

He turned to Pitch, but the man was already melting into the shadows, and appeared on the cavern floor a moment later. Jack flew down after him. "Hey, wait! Who was she? Friend of yours? How does she know North?"

Pitch slowed to a stop right at the edge of the ring of snow, and Jack's words died on his lips. How had he not seen it before? The rigid back, the raised shoulders, the alert angle of the head.

"Did she…does she make you nervous?" Jack cautiously asked.

"Does she make you nervous?" Pitch threw back casually, staring at the snowman. Probably glaring.

Jack laughed, thinking of the woman's eyes, her smile. "Nope." He hopped up on his staff with balanced ease. "Why does she make you nervous?"

"In what way did I imply that she made me so?"

"Your posture."

Pitch spun and advanced on him fast, startling Jack into tipping backwards. An ashy hand shot out and grabbed his staff, righting him but forcing his face close to the Nightmare King's. Hot breath ghosted over his cheeks as Pitch hissed, "Perhaps you should take note, then."

Jack blinked, and Pitch was gone. The frost spirit remained on his perch, wondering what about that woman could possibly have frightened the Nightmare King. Well, what was left of him.

That's it!

Clearly, the woman was a shade or spirit of some kind, like them. She had some sort of power, perhaps. Maybe Pitch was afraid that she would take advantage of him, overpower him somehow.

"You feel vulnerable."

He didn't think the whisper could be heard, but clearly it was when Pitch stepped up from behind him and stood at his side. Jack was getting used to these quick appearances, but that didn't mean it didn't make his heart jump every time it happened.

Pitch didn't speak, didn't even look at him for a moment. Jack used that moment to look him over. He had clearly gained something from the fear the Nightmares had brought, because his arms and legs were not quite so thin anymore, and his collar bone was not protruding as sharply as before. When he turned to look at Jack, he saw that some of the color had come back to the eclipses in Pitch's eyes.

"I do." The words were spoken with quiet silkiness. "Though not for long. My strength is returning. However, I am not cautious without reason."

Jack swallowed when the man leaned over and breathed quietly at his neck. The heat exhaled upon his skin was uncomfortable at the very moment, but he couldn't move. And he felt no fear.

"Nothing," Pitch murmured there, unmoving. "I taste the remnants of fear towards me, but nothing towards her." He stepped back, all the way into the darkness until it was only his eyes. "Believe me, Jack Frost, when I tell you that you should muster up fear for her. I do not give advice lightly."

The eyes closed and darkness remained.

Jack was a little surprised that he kept his own mouth shut about the Fearlings. He just assumed they were another source of power that Pitch possessed, yet hadn't used on them at the time of their battle. Perhaps it was a backup for him.

He also held his tongue about woman in black. Pitch was right: he couldn't find any fear for her. There was nothing wrong with her. He hadn't sensed anything from her, even if she was a spirit of some sort. He didn't mention the visitor to any of his fellow Guardians either, reporting that his shift had been a dull one, though he did mention that he had put a touch of snow in Pitch's lair. They felt a little better hearing that Pitch had tolerated it. It meant he was too weak to muster up the strength to do something about it.

"He is looking healthier," Jack added. Tooth looked indifferent, Bunny appeared to not have heard him at all, but Sandy and North nodded slightly.

"Is good," North agreed. "We are not animals to let him waste in darkness. And taking the momentary fear from children is good for them too."

So it was that they knew it was alright to continue with the few Nightmares Pitch still possessed, and Sandy promised to be more attentive to his dream sand so Pitch could not find a way to steal it.

It was two months later that Tooth came to Jack's quiet pond in Burgess with a plea on her lips.

"…Say what?"

"Please?" the vibrant fairy begged, darting in close to stare pleadingly at him with violet eyes akin to the cosmos. "It's just one time. Do me this one favor? I had forgotten I had already scheduled this night out with my fairies."

"Why do I have to pick up your shift? Ask someone else!"

"Sandy just did his last month. Bunny is next, and I don't want him to have a back-to-back, and North is busy. Oh, Jack, do this for me?"

Jack knew he couldn't deny her. The Guardian had given him what he hadn't known he had: memories. He sighed heavily with resignation, earning a back-breaking hug. She was stronger than she looked.

When he appeared in Pitch's lair, he was more cautious this time. Finally, exiting the tunnel and coming upon the cavern, he found that it was not all silent. Whispers, hisses, soft shifts in the darkness were coming from somewhere down below. Staff at the ready, he descended, knowing that any Fearling which reached for him would not live long.

He stepped onto the crumbled railing of a tilted bridge and looked down. It was Pitch, standing bare-chested in the middle of the floor, one hand drawing a circle in the air. Around him, darkness turned, and it wasn't made of sand.

Guess he's got his power back, Jack mused, leaning on his staff to watch.

Pitch beckoned with one graceful hand and allowed some of the shadows to surge forward and wrap around him. His brow was furrowed in concentration, and a glistening sheen of sweat covered his ashy skin. Jack didn't know why the man looked so focused. He was just controlling what he usually controlled, right? Aside from that one incident where the Nightmares dragged him away after his defeat, he shouldn't have been afraid, right?

His staff had slowly been icing the stone beneath it without his notice, and he slipped with it, making a startled noise.

Pitch turned slowly, as though he had been expecting company, but upon seeing Jack's surprised face, he stiffened. The shadows around his hand suddenly went wild and shot up his arm. Pitch voiced his displeasure and snarled at them. The darkness froze and slinked back into the mass that was circling around him, and the mass in turn dropped flat and retreated in all directions until there was nothing left in the clearing.

Jack floated down with an apology on his lips, but Pitch only turned and headed for the curious corridor that had held the beautiful door and the cozy sitting room. "What are you doing here?"

Jack grinned at the venom that dripped from the simple inquiry as he followed. "Surprised? Tooth asked me to take her shift. She's busy."

"Really," Pitch drawled disinterestedly, passing the sitting room without a glance. The corridor was lit dimly this time with burning torches, though not many. He continued on past a few more doors of similar design before stopping and pushing into a room. The light that slinked into the hallway was warm and steady. Jack took a step in and laughed.

"A bedroom?"

"This place is neither for my rest or pleasure," Pitch informed him, circling around the foot of the bed that stood beneath a hanging lamp which emitted a not-too-bright glow. It was a very small bedroom, and Jack could see that it wasn't used at all. The bed was neatly made, a wardrobe across from it, and there was a mirror at its side, though when Jack stepped in front of it, he could just barely make out his reflection due to the thick layer of dust which blanketed it.

He turned at the sound of a rustle, just in time to watch Pitch stretch to the side with raised arms, displaying taught muscles which rippled beneath grey skin.

Good God, his mouth was dry.

He almost laughed as his eyes traced the outline of muscles around Pitch's abdomen. He wasn't sure if he was seeing things, but he was pretty sure that there were darker lines crossing the skin there. Scars? His eyes then latched hungrily onto the scathingly white towel that ran across Pitch's neck, shoulders, torso—

"I suppose it can't be helped," Pitch muttered, causing Jack to snap his eyes to his face, flushed. Pitch looked over at him with a sneer, clearly having not caught the open-mouthed stare he had been receiving mere seconds ago. "Shall I make tea?"

It took a moment for Jack's brain to catch up to his mouth. "W-what?"

"A drink, Frost," Pitch said from behind the towel when he passed it over his face. "Do you want tea?"

"You gonna poison me?" Jack ground out suspiciously.

"Fine. I retract my offer," Pitch replied smoothly, crouching gracefully in front of a trunk and lifting its lid. "Honestly, boy, you haven't the slightest understanding of being a good host."

Jack bristled. "I'm not a boy."

"You are," Pitch insisted calmly, pulling a shirt over his head. The faint scars disappeared beneath the soft waves of cloth. "A mere child compared to me, or any of your pathetic companions."

"Watch what you say about them, Pitch," Jack spat, staff sparking angrily. "I can still whoop your ass."

Pitch rose up, towering over him, face fixed in a dangerous glare. "You dare threaten me in my own home?"

Jack had to drag his eyes away from the patch of skin visible in the slit of the shirt over the shade's chest. He frowned, taking in Pitch's expression, and said, "You look tired."

"Your attempt to change the subject is entirely pathetic."

"I'm serious. You ever sleep?"

"Shall I lecture you once more on the advantages of being what we are?" Pitch dropped the towel and brushed past him, leaving. Jack tailed him, still insistent.

"You just look like you haven't had proper rest for a long while. You do know that we can sleep, right?"

"Of course we can sleep," Pitch snapped, pausing in his step to throw Jack an irritated glare before continuing on. "Just as we can eat, gain wounds, retain scars, feel pain." His flow of words paused before he chuckled. "Well, the latter three are unavoidable in battle. However, sleep and nourishment are not required."

"But you feel refreshed after it, right?"

Pitch stopped at the edge of the corridor just before the open cavern. His hand traced the stone wall momentarily before slipping from it. "I…have not slept in a long while."

Jack came to stand at his side and glanced up. Pitch looked down at him with half-lidded eyes, and Jack prompted, "How long?"

Pitch's eyes closed. "Centuries." As soon as he spoke the word, he opened his eyes and glared at Jack. "Now get out."

Jack took a few steps into the open before his mouth got away from him again. "So what were you doing with the Fearlings?"

"What did it look like?"

"I dunno. Practice."

Pitch gestured with an open palm, a "there you have it" gesture.

Jack wasn't finished. "Why aren't you practicing with the Nightmares?"

"There isn't enough sand left for me to feel well-protected, so I must resort to my old methods."

"You used those…things before the dream sand?"

Pitch's mouth curved into a Cheshire-esque grin. "This seems like a conversation to be held over a cup of tea."

Jack considered it, then nodded. "Okay, then. Let's do it."

Pitch chuckled darkly, sending shivers down Jack's spine. "Frost. Surely you heard me earlier. That offer is no longer valid." And he vanished.