This chapter by me!
Three months.
He lasts three months before anticipation is clawing at his innards like a trapped beast. At any other point he'd be disgusted with himself for losing his patience in such a short blink. But these were unusual circumstances after all; he'd never had to make himself hold back from what was already his.
Pitch had meant to give Jack time, meant to let him come on his own. It was a delicate situation and he couldn't push again so soon. He needed to wait for Jack to come to him from his own free will.
But his hands burned and everything was too warm far, far too warm and sweltering and thick. He needed cool air (cool flesh, soft so soft and smooth and reacting so exquisitely to the slide of his hand) and wind on his face; needed something to pull his mind from it (the way Jack arched under his touch the way goosebumps would rise under Pitch's palm like his very skin was straining for more).
And it was so easy at first, the herd was restless and caught in the hunt and he let himself be caught with them. He rides for hours before he feels it.
Just a sliver, the smallest tint of familiar fear in the air. And it's just like that night it's the same flavor and cadence and distance does nothing to dim the taste of it. He imagines it's like the smell of a favorite dish or wine that drowns everything else.
He breaks from the herd and follows it, tracks it and grows almost giddy on the feel of it filling his senses (sweet and sharp and so, so quiet it's smaller than before and more tense its like the smell of the air before a blizzard or the crisp and burning cold on a clear winter sky).
The taste grows stronger as the miles go by and Pitch goes faster, grows more and more desperate as he hunts the delicate crack of fear to it's source. All his plans of patience go flying because he can't ignore it, can't hold back with the fear enveloping his every thought
Jack is close and the fear is in the air and Pitch can't wait, not with that pulling at him. He's so preoccupied that he barely manages to come to an abrupt halt at the tendril of golden sand in his path.
Sanderson...he hisses, pulling back into the shadow as the winding sand continues on it's path. He's so close, so so close and this FOOL is in his way.
He stays in the shadows, snarling softly as he dodges around streams of sand winding their way to their targets, never letting go of the scent of Jack's fear. Pitch can't hold in the growl when he finds his target sitting up cheerfully on Sanderson's cloud.
Pitch frowns, there is something...off. Jack is smiling, laughing at some idiotic thing Sanderson is doing but there is still that undercurrent of fear pulsing all around him.
Pitch falls deeper into shadow, slinks as close as he dares to get a better look.
Jack is smiling and bright eyed, but he's entirely saturated in fear. It scents every move he makes, makes his smiles brittle and his eyes flat and sharp. It makes his laugh cracked just ever, ever so slightly at the edges.
Jack wears his fear under a barely stable coat of shining smiles and bright laughter. Pitch is used to Jack covering his fear, but this doesn't dull and dampen it like the anger and defiance does. Jack's smile adds a new depth to it, makes it so much sweeter.
It's utterly fascinating. Everything is calm, Jack is surrounded by dreamsand, yet there is terror (brittle and impossibly delicate like thin frost over deep water and he wants to see that ice break wants to know what's underneath) coloring every move he makes.
What are you afraid of... he thinks, staring up at the smiling boy.
Of course, Pitch could look. Could pry open Jack's mind and see what has him smiling too wide and laughing too loud.
But that would hardly be any fun. And if Jack had taught him one thing, it was to enjoy the fun bits of life.
He slips away into the dark, though he wants so, so much to pull Jack down and feel that fear against him (vibrating and cold and it goes so perfectly together he thought Jack's defiance was perfect but his fear oh his quiet wondrous fear...), he doesn't dare approach while Sanderson is in the same COUNTRY.
The smile grows and doesn't leave his face as he returns to his Nightmares. There's the lingering flavor of Jack's quiet fear on the back of his tongue and the screams of his herd in the night. Everything is absolutely lovely.