The darkness pulsed and vibrated around him. There was far more turbulence than usual, and Pitch's grip on Jack faltered just as they tumbled back into the dim light of the kitchen in Pitch's house in Kostroma.

A hard landing. Pitch fell, rolled with the force of exiting from the shadows until he was supine, one palm pressing into his torso above his right hip. His back arched and he tilted his head back, gritting his teeth.

'Oh no,' Jack said, the staff clattering to the ground as he dropped onto his own knees by Pitch's side, staring down where Pitch's hand pressed into himself. 'Tell me you weren't shot.'

'I could tell you that,' Pitch said, strained but eloquent as ever, 'But it would be one whopper of a lie.'

'Shit, you have got to be kidding me,' Jack pulled Pitch's hand away and saw the blood that was already oozing through the thick material of the robe. He stared in disbelief and frustration, and then yanked the robe to the side, tearing one of the hidden fixtures as he went. Underneath the robe was a black undershirt made of a lighter material, and Jack pulled that up, only to find himself staring at the kind of carnage that the Nain Rouge probably loved.

'I can ice it, we can get to...' where? Where could they get to? Pitch wasn't a Guardian, Jack had no idea what could kill him. And Pitch was invisible to almost all human beings, they couldn't go to a hospital.

'Where the fuck do we go?' he heard himself say, voice rising on his desperation.

Pitch coughed weakly and touched his own blood, lifting his shaking fingers to stare at it.

'The shadows made me stronger, it's been so long, so long since I was injured like this. I barely remember what we used to...'

He trailed off and his eyes widened as he looked at his fingers.

'Pitch,' Jack said, staring down at the blood that was pouring out of him. There was too much of it, it was coming too quickly. He wondered if he should ice it. He'd iced broken limbs before, those of children who couldn't see him. But this was a gunshot wound to the torso, it had likely affected internal organs. He felt like an idiot, he had no idea where non-human beings went when they were injured. Did they just die?

His chest heaved as he started to hyperventilate.

Pitch was light grey and clammy, and even as Jack looked back down on the wound again, the blood had spread until he couldn't see much of Pitch's bare flesh at all.

'Pitch, what do I do?' Jack said, hands hovering over the wound, reluctant to ice it. 'Do you have a first aid kit?'

'No,' Pitch said absently, still staring at his fingers like the blood was mesmerising.

'Come on, seriously? You have every other stupid thing in this house.' Jack ran to the cupboards and started to look for a bandage to press into the wound. Maybe if he could stop the bleeding, Pitch could teleport them both, or even just himself to North's Workshop. North would know what to do, wouldn't he? And Bunnymund, he healed plants and tended ecosystems didn't he? He wouldn't let Pitch die, right?

Jack's lips thinned. He was way, way out of his depth.

As he rummaged through cupboards, Mora came into the room, drawn by the fear and the commotion. She whinnied in agitation and Jack turned to her, wanting to offer her some reassurance, but he had nothing. This can't be happening. He was not about to deal with Pitch dying on him, he couldn't, there was too much death, and he'd only just lost Jamie...

'This is going to hurt,' Pitch announced suddenly, and Jack whirled around.

'What is?' he said, apprehensive.

Pitch suddenly thrust his own fingers into the wound with such force that Jack gave a cry of horror. It looked like he was stabbing himself with his own hand. Pitch roared hoarsely, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth ground against each other. His head arched even as Jack scrambled back to his side, grasped his wrist between both of his and tried to pull his hand back out of the wound. But Pitch's wiry strength trumped his, and it was no use. Jack saw his fingers moving inside the bullet wound and he almost gagged.

'Are you mad?!' Jack shouted. Pitch ignored him, shaking and hardly conscious.

Pitch suddenly withdrew his fingers with a choked off sound of pain, dropping a squashed, blood-covered bullet to the ground. It made a light, pleasant sound on the slate, a stark contrast to the hideous wound it had caused. A moment later he pushed his fingers back deep into the wound, right up to the knuckles.

Jack tried to pull his hand out, convinced that Pitch had finally snapped. There was no logic in pushing fingers into your internal organs. Again, Pitch was stronger than him, even with a bullet wound.

Pitch gasped hoarsely, His whole spine stiffened as though an electric shock had jolted him.

Golden light splintered forth out of the wound. A rich, mellifluous glow, so golden it changed the colour of everything around it. Rays of it touched Jack's hands, and where it made contact, he felt warmth and light, felt imbued with a strange confidence, a feeling that everything was going to be alright. He jerked his hands back, heart pounding up somewhere near his throat.

Mora made a horrendous noise, somewhere between a shriek and a roar, and she tore out of the room as though the Sandman himself was on her heels. Jack hardly noticed, he was so fixated on the light. It made blood look like liquid gold, gristle looked like nuggets dug out of the ground.

Pitch withdrew his fingers from the wound slowly, inch by inch, and Jack couldn't tear his eyes away. Pitch was making the light. It spilled forth from his hand generously, lit the bones and tendons from within. It was as though beneath all that black clothing, he was some golden creature hiding behind skin and fabric.

Finally his fingers moved away from his abdomen, and the golden light sputtered out soundlessly from his fingertips, leaving the room blanketed in its dimmer light.

Jack stared down at the bare skin where the deep wound had once been. Aside from a great deal of blood, the skin itself was whole. There was no sign of a gunshot wound anywhere.

'What...did you do?' Jack breathed, pressing his fingertips to the skin tentatively, as though at any moment the horrible wound would re-open and suddenly appear.

'How...?' Jack stared at Pitch, even as Pitch stared at his own hand with wonder.

'I'd forgotten,' Pitch said, voice still strained, his eyes impossibly wide. 'I'd forgotten I could do that.'

'You forgot that you could make a light that heals something like a gunshot wound?'

'I haven't been able to make it for so long, and I was corrupted, it shouldn't-'

'Do you have other powers?' Jack said, suddenly realising that his image of the Golden Warriors as these regular people with swords was actually probably not accurate at all. These were people born with golden eyes, with a duty built into their genetic imprint. What else was built into the Warriors that were tasked with defending entire planets? His mind broke as it reshaped again, tried to make room for what he'd just seen.

'Do you have pre...shadow powers? Kozmotis Pitchiner powers?' Jack said, leaning over Pitch and staring at him closely. His body hummed with adrenaline, his eyes still flashed with phantom images of the golden light that he'd seen.

'I...' Pitch began, and then his eyes widened as though he couldn't quite believe what he'd done. He stared at Jack as though the answers would somehow just reveal themselves to both of them.

'There were other abilities, yes,' Pitch said slowly, and his expression shifted from wonder into something that looked a great deal like hope. Jack didn't recall ever having seen such an expression on Pitch's face before, though maybe he'd come close when he'd mentioned his daughter. The expression was so amazing, so special, that Jack just wanted to take the moment and seal it up somewhere so he could remember it forever.

Instead he did something else entirely. He leaned forwards until he could clumsily kiss Pitch on the lips.

Pitch didn't respond straight away. At first he looked shocked, and then his eyes narrowed. Jack shut his own eyes because he didn't want to see the rejection, didn't want to see anything at all. Pitch's lips were dry, his skin was warm and damp, sheened with a fine layer of sweat.

Jack was just about to withdraw, about to apologise, when two blood covered hands reached up and grasped either side of Jack's head, holding him still. Pitch's whole body oriented into the kiss, and he inhaled greedily, tilting Jack's head and opening his mouth under Jack's lips, licking his way inside Jack's mouth with a hungry groan.

Jack made a small sound in the back of his throat. It had been so long since someone had kissed him, he'd forgotten how much warmer everyone else was, how they had all this secret heat living inside of their bodies. Pitch's tongue slicking alongside his made him dizzy, and the heat reminded him of what it was to have a fever. It was a shock against the inside of his cold mouth, almost painful, but soon chased away with a settling warmth and a tongue that pressed against his once, then twice, then again before shifting to lick the inside of his bottom lip. Jack wanted to collapse into the sensations that Pitch was creating, wanted to fix his hands in his hair and leave them there for good.

He braced one hand on Pitch's chest and then straddled his torso, making a noise when he realised that Pitch's blood was everywhere and he'd probably have to lift a new sweatshirt and pants. His other hand found its way into Pitch's hair, tugging impatiently on the thick strands. He didn't know what he wanted, he didn't even know if he was ready for this.

His life had gotten complicated in an awfully short amount of time.

The hands in his hair shifted so that Pitch's fingers were on either side of his neck, so that his thumbs could move slowly over his cheeks, trace his cheekbones, the underside of his ear, the line of his jaw. The sensations created were intense as they built upon each other. Jack's kissing became uncoordinated as he was distracted by the sensations. A moment later he moved his mouth to the side and gasped several deep breaths, trying to collect himself.

'Too much for you already?' Pitch said, amused.

Jack's eyes narrowed in irritation and he opened his mouth to retort, and Pitch used that as an excuse to pull Jack's head back and bite his lower lip, before sucking it into his mouth. The chuckle that followed pressed its way into Jack as Pitch licked the roof of Jack's mouth with a carnal slowness that made Jack realise he was ridiculously hard. Already. He didn't even have the presence of mind to be embarrassed.

Pitch tasted faintly bitter and smoky, and Jack was surprised at how much he liked it. When his own tongue hesitantly pressed forward, Pitch withdrew his to allow Jack more access.

The inside of Pitch's mouth was a furnace, his teeth were not as jagged or sharp edged as he'd often wondered, and he found himself drawn to their texture, tracing them carefully with his tongue. Pitch inhaled through his nose, and then dragged his fingers down the side of his neck until they could grasp his shoulder.

This is happening, this is happening, you are kissing the Nightmare King.

Just like that, Jack realised that he was kissing someone who had tormented children, created Fearlings, the Nightmare Men, brought them to earth, harmed many. He'd destroyed kingdoms. And he knew that the Pitch he was kissing was not the same as the Nightmare King who had reigned for so long, but the fear bubbled anyway, and Pitch hissed in appreciation as it came. He rolled them both over until Jack was pressed into the slate floor.

Pitch moved his head back and stared down at Jack with a hunger that made Jack feel suddenly unsure of himself. There was experience in sexual matters, and then there was experience. And he was absolutely certain he fell into the 'I know what fucking is, but I haven't done it that much,' category. Pitch didn't seem to be in that category at all.

Pitch pressed his mouth to Jack's ear and licked the outside of it. Jack moaned, his eyes drifted shut. There were multiple fears lurking, vying for attention, being drowned out in Pitch's heat that left him shivery and turned on all at the same time. And one fear dragged itself up and made itself known, Jack was scared of how much he wanted this, he was scared of how much he wanted Pitch. Jack was lying in Pitch's blood and he didn't care, and that recklessness frightened him, because fun could get him into trouble, because it always hurt when whoever he was with left him. And they always left. He couldn't seem to hold onto any connection very long, romantic or otherwise. You make a mess wherever you go.

'You don't have to be afraid of this,' Pitch said, low and reassuring. Jack blushed, caught out, and he looked to the side. Pitch shifted and licked the side of Jack's face as he had done in the Nain Rouge's lair. He moved fingers firmly through his scalp, trailed fingernails over his skin, anchored him with touch. Jack moved a shaky hand over the outside of Pitch's arm, feeling the lithe strength there, hanging on even though he wasn't falling. His mouth was so dry.

'Though,' Pitch added, moving back to meet Jack's eyes, 'I would not be at all upset if you were.'

'You like it,' Jack said.

'I love it,' Pitch said. 'But I don't need it.'

He kissed Jack with a singular purpose. Jack had never had anyone kiss him with such control before, and it left him weakly grasping at Pitch's shoulder, feeling his mouth warm as Pitch's tongue curled around his. His legs shifted and spread on a blood-stained slate floor. He wanted more, damn it, whatever Pitch was willing to give he was willing to take. He could deal with regret, shame, all the complicated emotions later.

One of Pitch's hands shifted out of his hair, now sticky with blood, and moved rapidly down his ribs to slip under the hoodie, to feel his cool, bare skin. Jack hissed at the heat, and Pitch made a similar sound, trailing sticky fingertips over his flesh. It tickled, but not in a way that left him wanting to laugh. He felt dazed, a small part of him couldn't believe they were doing this, now. In the space of less than an hour he'd realised that their chemistry was a dangerous thing.

And still, he didn't care.

He moaned, thickly, when Pitch brushed the hem of his pants, and wanted to take a breath, but Pitch had his mouth pressed firmly to Jack's, and his hand in Jack's hair. He felt powerless to move.

Pitch's fingers drifted up from the hem back to the side of Jack's head, and Jack made a noise of frustration, kicking at Pitch impatiently. Pitch only responded by pulling his hair so that his head was pressed hard against the slate, and then biting at his lips, at his tongue. The bites weren't hard enough to really hurt, but they still sent a twinge of pain through him, and they made him harder all the same. Whining, he arched, encouraging, but Pitch didn't budge.

And then Pitch tumbled sideways, letting go of Jack's hair as Mora pushed him forcefully to the side with her head. She stepped forward and stood over Jack, protective, eyeing Pitch warily.

'Huh?' Jack said weakly, his voice deeper and raspier than usual. He cleared his throat and pushed himself into a sitting position, grimacing when his erection shifted uncomfortably in his pants. There was cooling blood under his hands, he shifted until he wasn't touching it directly.

Pitch looked as dazed as he felt, staring at Mora in confusion. And then his expression shifted from confusion to dismay.

'The golden light,' he said. 'She doesn't like it.'

It took a moment, but Jack remembered how she'd galloped from the room as soon as the light had sprung from Pitch's fingers. He hadn't realised that she didn't like it to the point that she'd separate Jack and Pitch, or that she'd have a problem with Pitch. For all this time, she had been drawn to him. Now she glared.

Jack stood up shakily, staring down at his hands, then the floor. His eyebrows raised at the blood, the smears of it. He could feel it matting his hair, cooling on his neck, making his hands tacky.

'Ugh, I'm a mess.'

He looked up at Mora, who was staring at him, keeping a safe distance from Pitch.

'What do you mean she doesn't like it?' Forming words was hard, coming up with complete sentences was hard, he looked at the blood on the tiling and saw a tiny bullet. He shook his head. Hadn't this all been caused by them making out in the first place? They wouldn't have been caught if they'd just left. And Pitch had been shot, Jack had been scared he was going to die. Everything had happened so fast.

'How did you do that light thing again? Where does it come from?'

'She's a Nightmare, Jack,' Pitch said, running a hand through his hair as he answered his first question. He pulled his hand back, glared at the blood and then wiped it off on his robe. 'She was made by the shadow's influence on dreamsand. And the golden light, it is primarily used as a...as a weapon. Against the darkness. It wouldn't destroy her, since her true origins are with the Sandman, but it will hurt her.' He looked at Mora in appeal and then frowned. 'I am so sorry.'

'Can she still stay here?' Jack said, putting a reassuring hand on Mora's warm neck and grimacing at the nameless fear that rose inside of him.

'Of course. But I daresay she will not like me very much.' Pitch pulled his robe to one side and looked at bloodstains on his flesh and the robe itself, and then thumbed the broken fixing where Jack had ripped the robe open. 'I should get changed.'

'Now?' Jack said, still partially hard, still hoping that that they weren't about to stop. 'Don't you mean like...in a little while?'

Pitch looked up with a small smile.

'I should, at the very least, report back to North and Gwyn, and let them know about the Nain Rouge's lack of loyalty, and that we were spotted by our enemies. And I doubt they'd appreciate any more delays, or the reasons for them.'

'You're not going to tell them why we were delayed?' Jack said, incredulous. The look Pitch directed at him was withering.

'Right, good,' Jack said, taking a few deep breaths and trying to calm himself down. His body still tingled, energy pulsed up and down his limbs. He caught himself staring at Pitch again, wondering if Pitch would just go with it if he flew over there and started kissing him again.

Pitch was staring back at him with a similar expression on his face.

Oh man, I'm in trouble here.

'Where,' Jack paused, cleared his throat and dragged his gaze away from Pitch to focus instead on the bloodstain on the floor. That was sobering. 'Where's the nearest place I can get some replacement clothes?'

Pitch tilted his head to the side, thinking.

'I do think there's some shopping establishments to the east, you'll find them easily enough.'

Jack licked his lips and tasted Pitch on them, and took a deep, shuddery breath.

'So...now we just, what? Get cleaned up? See the other Guardians?'

Pitch said nothing, and Jack threw his hands up in the air.

'Is that seriously what you want to do?'

Pitch walked quickly forwards. Mora scattered out of his way and Jack found himself backed up against a kitchen bench, blocked in by Pitch's arms. Pitch looked down at him, his expression almost menacing. Jack could no longer tell if his adrenaline was trying to communicate fear, or arousal, or both. It left his heart thundering an erratic beat, made him feel weak.

'What I want to do,' Pitch breathed, 'is drag you upstairs and have my way until all that frost is fucked out of you.' Pitch leaned even closer as Jack's breathing degenerated into something shallow and unsteady. 'That's what I want to do.'

Pitch's lips brushed the side of his cheek, and he paused there, his shallow breathing tickling tiny hairs.

'But one of us has to be responsible. And given that the consequences of us not being responsible is the Nain Rouge getting a heads up on our reconnaissance, and me getting shot, I daresay one of us is going to have to exert some willpower over this situation before it spirals out of control. Kudos has to go to that awful brat though, she is a force to be reckoned with. So many wights work with traditional weapons, guns almost seem crude.'

Pitch stepped back from Jack, and stared at the bloodstain on the floor in resignation. Jack stayed leaning against the kitchen bench, his own hands up and bracing himself, willing his erection to disappear and feeling like no exercise had ever been more futile.

'So it is to be responsibility, as I would not like a repeat performance of this,' Pitch finished.

'Responsibility is the worst,' Jack muttered, as Pitch turned and walked out of the kitchen.

'Tell me about it,' Pitch said from the hallway.

A little later, Jack found a sweatshirt similar to his blood-stained one in an almost deserted store, near closing time. No one saw him, and he was reminded – yet again – that his believers were few and far between. Most of them seemed to be in North America, and over the decades, their numbers had dropped off. It didn't hurt as much as it used to, because he had believers now, but it awoke that hollow pain inside of him where Jamie's belief used to live. As he clutched the teal hoodie to his chest, rendering it also invisible, he realised that nothing would ever replace that.

Finding pants was a harder task, and he ended up pilfering a frozen pair from a washing line, easily as overworn and bedraggled as his own had been. Whoever had worn them had forgotten about them, they had frozen stiff, crackling as he pulled them off the line. He sailed up on the winds with a laugh to avoid a snarling, lunging german shepherd.

Mora trotted in fey, easy circles around him as he stripped down and cleaned himself off in a river so fast-flowing it hadn't frozen over. He scrubbed fingers through his hair, removing dried blood and refreshing himself in the cold. Mora wasn't partial to the near-freezing water, but she seemed happy enough to frolic in the spray that he and the rushing waters kicked up.

When he was satisfied that the blood was gone, he floated up onto the banks of the river and peeled on his new clothing, not caring that he was still wet and the pants were still mostly frozen. Frost worked in his favour, and his wet hair quickly became covered in sparkling ice crystals, before falling off as he rubbed his hand through his already dry hair. Mora snuffled at the new clothes appreciatively, he gasped at the fear she evoked. Since the nightmare she'd caused, he sometimes found the fear she created had a harder edge to it.

He tugged the hood up and over his head and then scratched his hand vigorously against the side of Mora's warm neck. Her back leg twitched and then kicked rapidly at the ground in satisfaction, and he laughed at her, enjoying her happiness. She'd been perfectly fine since leaving Pitch's home, and he hoped that she would still stay there with Pitch.

He looked down at the hoodie and smiled at the frost pattern that had already spread across the cuffs, hem and collar. The patterns changed with each piece of clothing, and he could control them if he really wanted to, but he liked to see the way the frost innately picked its way across the fibres. There was more of it on the cuffs than last time, but otherwise the pattern was mostly the same. The way the frost had a sort of artistic mind of its own, the way he could create that with a touch, they were two things almost always made him smile. It was just cool.

'Well, I think you can understand me, so, I'm going to level with you. I'm going back to Pitch's place, because no one's found us there so far, and, because, uh...' Jack trailed off and chuckled in embarrassment. 'Anyway, Pitch said the light he made hurt you? Do you still want to come with me? Should we work something else out? I'll tell you what, if you just don't want to deal with it, you head back to the cabin and I'll come find you later and we'll work it out. And if you think you can handle it, come back with me and just make sure you avoid that light. What do you say?'

Mora tilted her head to one side as though she was processing what he'd said, but he could never tell exactly how comprehensive her understanding was.

He shot up into the sky, and she raced after him. He hoped that was a sign that she was willing to stay with him, instead of a sign that she hadn't understood any of what he'd just said.

Now that he wasn't focused on finding clothing, his mind wandered all over the events of the past week. Over and over again, it kept drifting away from the serious matters that probably required his attention and ended up squarely in the centre of the mess of feelings that rose up in him whenever he was around Pitch. They weren't simple, though he desperately wanted them to be. In a short amount of time he'd learned that fear fed off the same kind of adrenaline that fun did, and together, they got him turned on faster than he thought possible.

And he'd learned that he liked Pitch. But that was a scary thing. He could hardly imagine the faces of the other Guardians if he told them about Mora, and his heart sank when he tried to imagine their expressions if they'd seen him making out with Pitch, in a pool of blood, happier to be there than anywhere else. He didn't want to lose the Guardians as friends and companions, but he wasn't willing to give up whatever budding connection that was developing with Pitch either. And he didn't feel like he should have to. Pitch had saved his life. He'd proven that the changes to his personality were more than a phase, or a trick, over and over again. Even Gwyn didn't seem to mind him.

But Jack was certain that 'even Gwyn doesn't mind him!' wouldn't fly over too well as soon as the Guardians learned just how carnal Jack's interest was.

And he was worried that Pitch was just responding to attention, to the fear that Jack so generously provided. Jack was the first person who had paid Pitch any consistent, positive attention for a long, long time. How would Pitch even know if he genuinely had any appreciation for Jack? There was no way he could know. And secretly Jack wondered if the same was true for him. It had been so long since someone had lusted after him, what if there was a short-term expiry date on their chemistry?

Jack left heavy snowfalls in his wake, stressed and not wanting to think about it, but finding himself unable to avoid the subject as he raced back to Pitch's house.

Because, damn it, the more he got to know Pitch, the more he was actually enjoying his company. Pitch had a wicked wit, a dry and often dark sense of humour. He didn't seem to think that Jack had to grow up, or change his behaviour, or stop acting the way he did. He'd opened the window to let the cold, frosty air in when he'd been weak, understanding that Jack did better in a frigid environment. He had no problems with Jack's body temperature, with Jack's habit of cooling a room by several degrees wherever he went. He understood loneliness, and loss. Jack knew he had his more sinister sides, could feel the thrill of it whenever Pitch looked at him like he was something he wanted to devour, but it didn't repel him.

But Pitch was right, they needed to be a little more responsible. Or, okay, maybe a lot more responsible. The Nain Rouge privileged damage and destruction above playing nice, and it would only take one misstep for him to find her fingers wrapped around his throat again. And he didn't even want to think about what would have happened if Pitch hadn't realised he had that golden light at his disposal. They would have figured it out, wouldn't they? He wouldn't have died, surely.

He took a deep breath as he ducked in through one of the open windows in the second level of Pitch's home. He floated through the house, looking for Pitch, as Mora veered off and settled on her own in one of the many bedrooms. In the end, he dumped his old, bloody clothing alongside Pitch's bloodstained robe, in a laundry that had been refitted with new appliances.

But he still couldn't find Pitch anywhere. He didn't think Pitch would have gone to North's without him, but he decided it was possible. He had been away for a little while, and Pitch hadn't wanted to delay reporting back.

He exited the house and then let the wind drop him to the ground, kicking up snow thoughtfully.

In the distance, he heard a distinct shout of frustration cut off halfway through. He turned to it, his eyes widened. She's found us! Images of the Nain Rouge and a bloodstained Pitch returned with frightening intensity.

Jack flew towards the direction of the sound so quickly that whirls of hail followed him, hitting the dense trees with small pings of sound.

And then he stopped abruptly when he came upon Pitch in a clearing, sword out, fighting nothing at all. He had changed into a new robe, this one with silver embroidery on a black background. His hair was slicked with sweat, and his face was taut with a combination of concentration and annoyance. He hadn't seen Jack at all, focusing too hard on whatever had his attention.

Jack dropped soundlessly into a crouch on a low hanging tree bough, watching as Pitch took a deep breath and stood up, holding the sword with an ease borne of years and years of practice and competence. And then with purpose, he began to move through a long, elaborate drill. The sword was clearly designed to inflict maximum damage, requiring two hands to be used effectively, shaped for hacking, chopping and cutting, rather than stabbing. It was a huge, heavy weapon, and Jack watched Pitch use it with a newfound respect. Previously, Jack had only seen him use it as a kind of barrier, a threat, but to see him step precisely through the snow, hacking at unseen hordes of enemies, was something else entirely. No wonder Pitch had found it so easy to create weapons from the living shadows, to create his sand-based scythes and arrows. He had the same dancer-like qualities that all good swordmasters had.

But whatever Jack was seeing, it didn't gel with Pitch's view of himself. With a growl of frustration he stopped his drill halfway through and thrust the sword deep into the ground in agitation.

It was in the motion of dragging a hand through his hair and baring his teeth up at the sky that he spotted Jack.

'Hey, don't look at me like that,' Jack said, raising a hand to indicate his innocence as Pitch practically snarled at him. He jumped down to the ground and shrugged. 'Whatever you were doing looked good to me.'

Pitch didn't say anything. He sighed instead and pressed both of his thumbs into his eyes as though trying to quell a terrible headache. Jack had seen highschool students and university students make that same gesture when they were studying for a particularly gruelling exam.

Snow days always helped them.

Jack bent down and made the snowball, blew on it and then hurled it at Pitch's head.

It landed with a satisfying crumble of snow, and Pitch dropped his arms and stared at Jack like he wanted to murder him.

Any moment now...

On cue, Pitch's expression shifted and he let out a small breath of laughter behind a closed mouth. He shook his head at himself, as though trying to rid himself of a fly.

'What do you put in those infernal things?' Pitch said. He looked exhausted, but far less frustrated, and Jack bent down to make another snowball. Pitch watched him warily.

'I dunno. North would call it magic,' Jack said, as he blew on the snowball and looked at Pitch playfully, trying to determine the best place to throw it.

'North cohabitates with giant furry yeti and hundreds of elves who don't make a single neuron between them. You trust what he says?' Pitch said, but he turned slowly to watch Jack and the snowball.

'Yeah, of course I trust what he says! You've been inside that Workshop. It's pretty awesome. Besides, I'm alive and back from the dead and my life-force is frost, so you know, I happen to think magic is real. I can prove it, if you like,' Jack said and faked hurling the snowball at Pitch.
Pitch ducked the fake throw, and then Jack used that time to actually throw it. The packed snow landed right on target, bursting as it hit Pitch's head, and Jack burst out laughing.

'You fell for that? There are dogs out there who don't even fall for that!'

Jack found it so funny that he fell backwards against a tree and pointed at Pitch in amusement. Pitch straightened, shaking his head again, brushing snow out of his hair. Jack wasn't remotely worried about any genuine anger, because even Pitch wasn't able to withstand the power of one of his well-thrown snowballs.

Jack's laughter died off as he took in Pitch's expression. He always looked so surprised to be feeling something good. Jack blinked hard, a sudden bolt of sadness making him step away from the tree. Were good feelings that rare for Pitch? So unusual that he would look so mistrusting of the fun a simple snowball could bring?

'Hey,' Jack said, walking forwards, 'you just looked really angry before, and I thought you were doing really well. No harm done?'

Pitch looked up at him, and then looked over at his sword sticking up out of the snow and hard-packed ground. When he turned back to Jack, he looked speculative.

'Would you...do it again?'

'Throw a snowball at you?' Jack said, bending down to pick up some more snow. His eyes narrowed in confusion, but he shaped it all the same as he straightened.

'Yes, though not yet, if you don't mind.' Pitch walked over and pulled his sword out of the ground with a single, hard tug. 'I've been trying to do something which...might not even be possible. I have to admit that frustration blocks the chances of success, but I was never very patient with myself, and that was well before I found myself shot and your frost in danger of being sucked out by the Nain Rouge herself.'

Pitch spread his legs in a steadying stance, and then stared at the sword thoughtfully, before looking over at Jack. He nodded his go ahead with such seriousness, that Jack felt like this was the strangest situation he'd thrown a snowball in. And that was saying something, because he'd created some pretty inconvenient snowball fights.

The snowball landed, dusting Pitch's hair with snow. Pitch hardly reacted. He took two deep breaths, and then stepped gracefully into the sword drill, staring at the weapon with a singular focus.

After about thirty seconds, the sword suddenly flashed brightly. It lasted only a second, but Pitch froze, then dropped his sword like it had burned him. His chest heaved in shock.

'So that wasn't what you were trying to do?' Jack said, frowning.

Pitch bent down and picked up the sword again, staring at Jack, hardly seeing him.

He started the drill again, and within only a few seconds, the sword stopped catching the light and started emitting light. Jack gasped. It had the same golden quality as what Pitch had created in order to heal himself. Was that what Pitch had been trying to do all this time?

The light guttered a few times and then suddenly flared up strong, turning the sword incandescent and almost invisible. Pitch changed the grip on his sword slightly, and then made a huge, sweeping motion that cut horizontally through the air.

A huge wall of light, honey-gold and palpable, swung off the edge of the sword and careened into the forest, painting the trees and snow with the colours of sunset as it went. And if that wasn't enough, Pitch continued on with his drill, sending the golden light off his sword, into the forest, a look of fierce concentration on his face with each movement.

He reached the end of the drill and his shoulders immediately bowed forwards, shuddering. Jack launched forwards, because Pitch looked exhausted. But when he reached Pitch, he found that Pitch didn't look fatigued, he looked miserable.

'I shouldn't still be able to do this,' Pitch said hoarsely as Jack cautiously approached, staring at his own sword like it had confounded him. 'After everything that I've done. I shouldn't be allowed...'

He looked up at Jack and his features twisted. The anguish was so enormous, Jack felt scoured out just seeing it. Pitch sheathed his sword and then dropped to his knees. Jack dropped with him, wondering what was so terrible about being able to make a golden light that practically sung from the sword like it had always been there.

'What do you mean you shouldn't be allowed to do that?' Jack said, when Pitch didn't say anything.

'We train a long time to be able to make that light. First, we conquer fear to become fear. That awakens in us a darkness that manifests differently for each one of us. And then our training involves a purification. An immersion in the golden light of the stars. It is the pinnacle of our training, learning how to master and then create that light. That light, Jack, it destroys the shadows. The Nightmare Men. The Fearlings. It purifies them, it releases those trapped in the darkness and sets them free. It is not like the sword, which simply holds the darkness at bay and repels it, which can defeat shadows singly, in numbers that make no difference to the hordes of malevolence.

'The things I've done. The darkness I've carried in myself, that I've embraced. Oh, being the Nightmare King for thousands of years for example! There should be no room left in me for that light.' Pitch stared at his own hands in bewilderment and then gave a breath of dismay.

'But isn't it a good thing?' Jack said, trying to understand what he was being told. 'Isn't it like a testimony to your strength, or something, that you can still access it? Doesn't that tell you that you're not as terrible as you think you are?'

'If it's there now, that means it was always there,' Pitch's voice turned terrible, each word pulled from some dark, hideous place. 'And if it was always there, then perhaps I could have overturned the possession on my own. Maybe I could have fought harder against them. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough.' The words were ripped from him with self-directed venom.

'What?' Jack said, and Pitch looked at him with a bleakness that reminded Jack of his own emptiness. It was the look of a man who had been turned absolutely hollow by his experiences, who no longer believed he was capable of anything good. His mind suddenly recalled Bunnymund, passionately telling him: He has to reckon with everything he's done. It destroys a man, Jack, to even kill one or two people. Pitch has been destroyed by loss!

'And if that light was always there,' Pitch continued, 'maybe I could have fought them off in time to watch Seraphina grow, maybe I could have stopped them in time to become a father again, and not some mon-...not what I became.'

Jack swallowed and stared down at the ground, and then he shook his head.

'That doesn't make sense though. That can't be right, can it?'

'Pardon me?' Pitch said, a hint of his old sinister self lacing through his words, turning them silkily dangerous.

'No, I mean, just...I mean I'm not telling you that everything that happened is okay. I'm not saying that. But, wasn't there like an army of you? And didn't an army of you still fail to completely destroy the shadows? And even if you could all make that light, even united, it didn't defeat them for once and for all, you still had to imprison the rest, didn't you? There were too many, and they multiply, I mean the Nain Rouge said she knew how to make more and I bet the shadows know how to make more of themselves. They're never-ending, right?

'Which means that...even if you hadn't been possessed, you couldn't have overthrown them on your own. And you weren't fighting against them with your army when they possessed you. It was just you. Against all of that. I mean, come on, I know you wanted to be the best there ever was and that's really noble and all, but maybe you should cut yourself some slack?'

Pitch stared at Jack like he was seeing him for the first time.

'I bet you did try to overthrow them,' Jack continued, 'You kept the locket of Seraphina and I bet the shadows didn't want you to. And...I know that doesn't excuse what you did. I know that. But I think it's a miracle you managed to keep any light inside of you at all. And I think that if it wanted to stay alive, it had to bury itself really, really deep, because otherwise it would've just gone out like a candle.'

'You were afraid for me,' Pitch said suddenly, changing the subject with such speed that Jack actually blinked, 'before, when I was bleeding out, you were afraid I was going to die.'

It sounded like Pitch could hardly believe the words he was saying.

'Ah, that,' Jack said. 'Well, sure I was. I don't want you to die, you know.'

They looked at each other cautiously, as though at any moment, the words exchanged could blow up between them and mean something completely different. But then as seconds ticked on by, and minutes passed, Jack realised that he was okay with Pitch knowing how he felt. He was only sad that there were so few people in Pitch's corner now. Though that probably wouldn't last, now that he wasn't the Nightmare King, now that he was some great warrior. Jack had a sudden, awful image of himself in the background, watching Pitch directing some meeting amongst fellow warriors, and then drifting off to be with them, to be with others who understood war and strategy and that single-minded solidarity.

'Jack, I'm not going anywhere,' Pitch said gently, and Jack shook his head.

'Yeah, I know. Especially now that you have that golden glowy stuff on your side. Healing yourself? That's convenient.'

'No, I need to explain something to you, even though you'll probably not believe me. I can't not be aware of some of your fears. They push at me, because some of them are...about me.' Pitch looked uncomfortable as he tried to find a way to put his thoughts together. 'Whatever we're doing? I'm not going anywhere. Whatever this is? It's not just novelty. Surely you know that.'

Oh. Shit.

'Yeah, yeah, I know that,' Jack said, with a bravado that neither one of them believed.

'You don't have to believe me. Most fears erode with time, not words, and that is an old truth. But perhaps it may help to know where I stand.'

They sat there in silence for a while.

'Who would've thought it, huh?' Jack said. 'Cold and dark really do go well together? Or is that cold and...golden something? Fun and fear?'

Pitch laughed behind a closed-mouth, as always. Jack wondered what it would be like if he really laughed, open-mouthed and free. He couldn't imagine it.

'So the snowballs helped you, huh? Does that mean I can start throwing them at you all the time now?'

'It does not,' Pitch said, soberly.

'Is it really so hard for you to feel anything...good?' Jack asked, hoping he was wrong. Pitch didn't answer, and Jack knew that was an answer in and of itself. Who knew how long Pitch may have struggled with those drills, on his own, if he hadn't been jump-started by a few snowballs?

Pitch stood up and brushed snow off his robes, holding out a hand to Jack, who was already in the process of bouncing back into the air. He smiled apologetically as Pitch lowered his arm, but Pitch shrugged with a single shoulder.

He turned and looked off into the distance, away from his house and then back to Jack.

'Are you coming to North's Workshop? You've travelled through the shadows a few times today, and you're starting to look worn.'

'Yeah,' Jack said, 'I'll be okay for a few more, I think? But...I'm going to need to sleep again, at some point. I hate this,' he muttered, 'I am going to get my frost back from that creature if it's the last thing I do.'

'It may well be,' Pitch said, taking his shoulders in a familiar grip and whisking them away into the dark.