-Basically a chapter to set up the last few chapters. Should be only two more after this one, with the next one being majorly fluff until the conclusion. Thank you all for sticking with it this long, and enjoy.-
~Pitch Black~
Normally, I'd complain about how Astrid could, regardless of how many hours of sleep she'd gotten or the time of day, sleep like a hibernating animal. Honestly, she'd slept for two days, it was mid-morning, and still I had woken up before her, leaving me to piece togething in my exauhsted mind why exactly I'd woken up with her and I tangled up like teenagers in bed. Yes, normally I would complain about that. Right at the moment, though, complaining was the farthest thing from my mind. In fact, I was more content than I'd ever remembered being.
She was curled up to my chest, her face half-buried in the robe with one hand lightly grabbing the fabric, the other hand curled under my pillow. Her face was so serene, so calm, completely oblivious of anything that had or would happen when she woke up, completely lost in the moment and looking every bit of safe that she deserved to be. Something about it, about how she looked, made a warmth run from my chest and into a slight smirk, one arm wrapped around her waist and keeping her to me, the other reaching forward and lightly brushing away strands of hair.
She didn't so much as mutter as I trailed my fingers down her cheek, the back of my knuckles running every-so-lightly over her lips. And, as they did, I closed my eyes and inhaled, trying to focus on the feel, the taste of it all, of what had happened. Most would prefer their kissing partner be experianced as they were, if not slightly more so. I thought this was desirable, as well.
Until Astrid kissed me, and then I realized how terribly wrong I was. Because there was a sort of innocence, of adoration about it. And possibly I was just too used to protecting this girl, to attempting to teach her things that normally ended miserably, that not only did the teaching come natural, but the outcome was quite the pleasent surprise. I leaned my head down and pressed my lips to her forehead, knowing that was all I could allow myself at the moment. She needed sleep.
I never would have thought that I'd ever want to have something from Astrid so terribly bad as I wanted this. Before it had happened, I could still have resisted. I could have waited. I wasn't obsessed with it, I didn't feel the need for it like a teenager might. I was a full-grown man, aged past anything this planet could name. I did not fall into the pressure of hormones...for now. Because before I hadn't known exactly what it was that I had been resisting. Now I'd had some, and it soon became a drug.
Though I could imagine the onslaught of fury I'd recieve if I woke her up merely to kiss her again. As if she were making it easy to resist. She curled again, shifting in the sweater far too large for her and moving up, nuzzling her face into my neck, hiding her face from me as she exhaled long and slow, her breath drifting over my skin and lips brushing my collarbone. And I exhaled in irritation.
"You will be the absolute death of me, do you know that you little brat?" I asked. My only response was her silence and light breaths across my skin. It was odd, truly, to think that I hadn't thought of Astrid this way at one time not too long ago. There was always something there, but I just took her as a constant companion in which I shared more than anyone. Someone I understood and who in turn understood me.
But she had always been just a headstrong kid who had been put through more than she deserved to have done to her. She was truly a spectacle. But, until this whole mess happened, that view hadn't changed, and I wondered, had none of this happened, would it still have on its own? Was this just a gentle push, or if we were never forced into this would I have come to this realization?
I thought of when MiM spoke to me, when I'd admitted it to myself simply because I found denial petty and shameful. But at the same time, I felt as if that had set this into full swing.
I hadn't known it was going to happen. Didn't know when it did. And I wasn't quite sure what was going to come out of it. Like everything between me and her, it had always been there, and just was. It required no explanation and no force other than admitting it to ourselves.
I laced my fingers through her hair and looked off into the darkness, thought of her and all we had been through, thought of centuries of struggle and isolation. I wondered how I had never seen this coming, and at the same time how it could ever have happened in the first place. As if we weren't rare enough cases. As if I deserved her...
Because, truly, that was what astonished me the most. I had kept my word, I had given her a choice. And she chose me. This girl that had gone through so much at such a young age, this girl that looked into the face of the Man in the Moon and spat, this girl that was so strong and gentle all at once, she had chosen a man condemned to shadows. She had comforted his daughter in her dying moments. She had seen me in such a state of vunerability and acted as if she didn't care that I was supposed to be the Nightmare King. She just acted as if she truly would rather take my pain than let me feel it.
Maybe for a moment she had just forgotten we weren't supposed to have any definable connection. Maybe she forgot that she was this force of nature, and I was merely the Boogeyman. But she had locked me with those eyes, looking right into me, and there was no way she could have forgotten anything. She had made this choice. This girl that talked of my daughter and did not make me hurt from it, when before the memory could break me so easily. This girl that she had trusted with her final words to me...
And suddenly a warm smile found its way back onto my face. She had always been such a good judge of character. Possibly that is why she trusted Astrid when no one else would. I always imagined that, had I ever the urge to spend my life with another, I would have Seraphina pass judgement on them first, gain her blessing.
And, even after all these years, after all I had done, I had still recieved it.
~Astrid~
"Oh, for heaven's sake, wake up! It's not as if you've been sleep deprived. Teenagers, honestly, I don't know how you can sleep for two days and then another four hours on top of that- oh, get up!"
"No. Can't make me." I mummbled into his chest, clinging onto him like some spider monkey as he huffed and squirmed. To be honest, if he wanted to shake me off he could, and I think he knew I knew that. Hell, the man could dissolve into shadows, and in the dim room there were nothing but. But I think he was just as reluctant to move as I was, if not burdened with the responsibility of actually getting me to this meeting. He huffed loudly and rested a hand down on my lower back, him laying on his back and my head on his chest, which was a pillow I was not yet ready to leave. For being a twig, the guy was comfy.
"Astrid, the way I see things we have two very unfavorable options. One is that we actually wake up and try not to look like million-year-old, hormonal teenagers and go to that damned meeting with that damned man to talk about that damned incident. Two is that we stay here for a few moments longer and all of the Guardians, including MiM himself, come bursting in and catch us in this quite compromising position." He mused, though doing nothing to make me chose the lesser of the two evils as he trailed his finger tips lightly from my lower back upwards, and then down again.
The soothing gesture without the taint of panic, now just as something affectionate, something absent-minded, brought a whole new feeling to it. It wasn't necissairy, it wasn't in a moment of turmoil. It was in a moment of wanting to touch, to relax, to silently explain things that couldn't be said with words. I groaned and nuzzled my face into his collarbone, grumbling as I pulled myself from sleep,
"I'd love to see the look on MiM's face."
"Yes, that would be quite lovely. But let's not forget the un-ending conversation with Tooth, the awkward explanation to Frost and the Sandman, North and whatever he would do being highly unpleasent, and let's not forget Aster. He may not have fully come to grips with anything, but there had always been that slightly territorial side to him that hold a protective nature over you. Besides, my neck hurts from you shoving your face into it all night. You truly want to deal with my complaining?"
"...I still hate you."
"Lovely. Now get up, we're already five minutes late." He mused, finally taking my arms back and grumbling, feeling disoriented knowing that I'd slept for so long and yet it was only around 3 o' clock. Everything nowdays kinda seemed to happen either in slow-motion or way too fast, and I was waiting for it all to finally fall back into balance. Then again, my life didn't exactly have a balance anymore, did it? Not after what happened just a few hours ago, not with the awkward feeling surrounding me as Pitch slid out of bed on his side.
"Why didn't you wake me up ten minutes ago?" I asked, sitting up and running a hand through my hair. Something in my chest pounded, and I wasn't too sure it was my heart. It was...nerves? Fear? Was this how people felt normally in relationships? But Pitch and I were most definitly NOT in a relationship. That was something I was certain of. Nothing between us would ever be set in stone with a chisel and words...
...But that also made it quite difficult to really pinpoint what I was feeling, and why a nervous fear twisted in my gut. Why it felt like I just wanted to go back to sleep, why I didn't want to go out there and see the others, why...why I wanted everything to go back to normal and at the same time was terrified of going back to isolation, going back to the same routine of tragedy, nightmares, and fear. Why I didn't want to see Aster. Why I didn't want to see MiM...
I felt a finger ghost under my chin, tilting my head up as I looked at Pitch in mild surprise, almost completely forgetting he was there in the first place. He frowned at me and his eyes searched my entire face, gold and silver flickering in an almost observatory manner, as if looking for something he couldn't quite name. He quirked up an eyebrow and I huffed in irritation, just sitting there while he looked at me in silence, feeling my temper already on a short fuse.
"See something you like?" I snapped sarcastically, and to my surprise, Pitch moved his hand to the side of my face and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to my forehead that made something twist in my gut, something akin to longing and a typical teenage nervousness that I'd hoped I'd grown out of around year four-hundred.
"Not exactly." He whispered tiredly, and I shot him a glare. He caught it and rolled his eyes, heaving a sigh and correcting himself, "Oh honestly, that is the farthest thing from what I meant. I was talking about that bit of fear that seems to be quite popular in your mind recently." I paused, shrinking back a bit and for once almost wishing Pitch couldn't read my fears, knowing that he could read them better than I could sometimes.
He must have seen something else in my eyes, because he rolled his eyes again and pushed my chin up with his knuckle, something that was starting to get a bit irritating.
"Oh please, as if it's anything embarrassing. No, I wouldn't tell you if it were humiliating. Blackmail is too rare a weapon nowdays." He deadpanned, me glaring and shooting a fist out, catching him in the ribs. He didn't so much as flinch as he used his other hand to smack me upside the head, knuckle still under my chin as I instantly went on the offensive, reaching for the hand under my chin and holding it there as I moved forward to punch him again, a half-hearted little brawl that we had when we both needed to let off a little steam. Usually it ended with me sitting on Pitch's back and him swearing my impending demise.
This time, though, things went a little differently. As in, way differently.
Instead of just taking my punch and rolling his eyes like he normally would do, I felt the hand I held twirl, switching positions until he had a firm hold of my wrist, the other hand stopping my punch with a militaristic skill, hand clenching around it and pushing suddenly forward. I closed my eyes and let out a curse as I went flying back onto the bed, hands pinned by my shoulders and his hands grasping my wrists, not firmly enough to hurt but just enough to keep me there.
And just as suddenly as the half-hearted hostility ignited, it died down. He sighed, I rolled my eyes, and the whole spell was broken.
"You know," He said, looking down at me with a frown and serious eyes, "Your fear is nothing to be ashamed of. I feel it in all the Guardians, in almost every person that walks through me on this entire damned planet. Yours is just in such high concentration because...well, because it was a reality once." He paused as I pressed back a bit into the bed, an uncomftorble feeling of being read and vunerable twisting through my stomach, a feeling I rarely got with Pitch.
Then again, I rarely didn't know what I was afraid of.
He paused a moment, as if something dawned on him, his eyebrows drawing in before he tilted his head back a bit, only to lean forward again and press his knees outside of mine, bringing his lips just before my ear. I felt a shiver of anticipation run across my skin, trying to surpress it by shifting my shoulders against the bed, arms held in a bit of an awkward position. I could feel his head close to me, looking at the ceiling but feeling his body close to mine, an acute feeling I never thought Pitch could ever carry with him.
"Do you want to know what you're afraid of?" His breath ghosted across my ear, and I gave no response. He knew the answer, the bastard, he was just playing with me. He moved so that his face was now inches from mine, releasing one of my wrists though I kept it there, not sure where to put it. He trailed long fingers down my cheek, trying to contain a heat across my face as he looked at me with almost sad eyes. They looked across my face, down the trail he led with his fingers down to my jaw, and finally looked me in the eye.
"You're afraid that this is all too good. That it will all crumble just when you need it the most, just when you think it's all safe." He paused, and the weight of hearing exactly what I was afraid of almost paled in comparison to the look of...sadness, on his face. Because he was sad, tragically so, looking at me as if he'd failed somehow. A look I'd only seen a few other times, and even then it was passing glances, and when I'd looked back it was back to his strict and serious facade.
But now all I could see were the emotions pitted behind his eyes. As if my fear actually made him hurt, as if it affected him. And sure he could hear it...but then I remembered almost startlingly that Pitch was the only person who made sense to be affected by my fear. Because wasn't our fear the same? Weren't we too alike? Didn't we understand each other, and in return almost kinda tried to make it better by giving the other at least the assurance of our own company?...
He sighed after awhile and sat back, the sudden loss of heat uncomftorble, pushing myself up in response and pushing his chest as he knelt straddling my legs. There were gentle sounds of footsteps outside the door, a few yetis mummbling and the far-off sound of Jack's laughter and elf bells ringing. I heard North mutter something far away, heard the quiet skitter of yetis wheeling tables across the floor, still half-recovering from the New Years incident. The sound of glass being swept up.
I pressed my hand to his chest. I heard his breath slow, felt his heartbeat, and suddenly it was just us and the rest of the world kinda just stopped. It hushed. And I felt in this moment that both of us shared my fear, and only one of us knew it was irrational. I was watching my hand pressed against the center of his chest, feeling the slight indent of bone, when his hand dwarfed mine and pressed it there more firmly, as if to reassure me that, yes, he did indeed have a heart.
"What I said last night was not a case of adrenaline or getting lost in any sort of moment, Astrid." He said firmly, both our eyes looking at our hands pressed to his own chest, feeling the beat below my hand and feeling my fear almost receed, still lingering in the back of my mind and demanding to be known, but now it was easier to shove it off. At least for now, at least here.
"This is fucking crazy, you know that right?" I asked, and felt him chuckle under my hand, chest shallowing and lightly shrugging. Despite myself, I felt a smirk fall into place on my face, and his hand over mine curved in until it held mine, fingers wrapping around easily.
"What, this? I thought we were the definition of a perfect romance. A modern-day Romeo and Juliet." He mused sarcastically, and I laughed, shaking my head and nudging him forward, not hard enough to shove him off but enough to send the messege. As he moved backwards fluidly and stood, releasing my hand as I walked past, I said,
"We certainly weren't 'love-at-first-sight', and this thing's gonna last more than three days. Besides, I'm way more badass than Romeo."
It took him a few seconds to get it, and by the time he did I was already out the door.
~Pitch Black~
Normally I tried to discourage Astrid's constant expressive hatred towards others in moments when it was inappropriate. Now, though, I honestly couldn't care less. Because I knew that, as much as she was glaring at him, as uncomftorble as she was, all I could feel were his words. He had no clue, he couldn't. If the man was that intuitive, he might not be in this situation in the first place. But they were there, and whether he knew it or not...
...I shook myself, telling my own mind to focus on the task at hand. North sat across from me at the giant dest, a massive mosaic of the world behind him writ with the same script as was on the globe, missing everything the lights. To his side sat Tooth, his other side Sandman, Aster and MiM at the heads of the table, Astrid to my right closest to Aster and Jack to my left closest to MiM, who sat somberly as ever.
The only solace I got was the fear radiating off of him in the most beautiful of sounds. Fear of her further hatred. Fear of failing again. Fear of losing her, as if he ever had her in the first place.
"First things are first," North began, my eyes flickering over to him, hands folded patiently in my lap and waiting to see if this meeting were actually going to be productive or a waste of my time, "Astrid, how are you feeling?" I saw her shrug nonchalantly out of the corner of my eye, knowing full-well she was lying. I'd heard her in the moments when I was awake and she still slept, at times her breathing labored, at others wincing with a hand straying absent-mindedly over her sternum. It hurt. It had to.
And I wasn't the only one putting off explaining to her exactly what we had done. North, instead of pushing like usual, simply nodded and moved on.
"Very well. Would it be very difficult to explain what happened?" North asked carefully, and I looked at Astrid out of the corner of my eye. She paused a moment, processing his words, but spoke almost instantly, as if none of this bothered her. I could almost feel the pressure cap she had straining.
"He popped up behind me like some creep out of hell, shoved a gun to my chest and told me to look at the moon. There wasn't one, New Moon, blah blah blah, lots of blood, drama, sleep, here. A whole lot of it's just one big blur to me, being kind of more-than-half-dead the whole time." She spoke as if it were nothing, but there was a strain to her voice, one I picked up on instantly while the others just sat in wrapped attention.
North nodded grimley and said, hands pressed down onto the table as he motioned his head to MiM in a respectful manner,
"Yes, when Manny arrived he told me he figured it out a bit too late." Astrid muttered something that sounded like 'yeah, a fucking bit', but it was cut off as the aforementioned deity spoke, my eyes flickering over to him. It was odd, to say the least, to see a man such as him in a place such as this. Amusing, almost.
When you stripped the king of his castle and throne, took away his glittering white walls and brought him level with his subjects, he didn't seem quite so mighty anymore. In fact, looking at him now in his white robes and celestial sash, at his youthfully aged face drawn into a somber look, at his hair neat and prim, and whereas before he looked every bit of all-powerful 'Man in the Moon', now he looked merely like just that. A man. The glow around him was gone, and though the Guardians still held him in high regards, I could sense a shift of atmosphere that registered with one of his fears.
They knew him now. They knew he had faults. How each dealt with it I didn't know, but they knew, and now to see him like this... He had a fear of power loss. And that was the greatest things to come from this meeting so far.
"Yes...Astrid," He said, and I saw that he spoke to her whilst keeping his eyes on his hands folded together on the table before him, "I realized his plan a fraction too late. You see it is quite hard to view each spirit individually, and as I attempted I realized why I was having such struggle so suddenly, his image completely blocked from me. With everything that had been going on, I forgot the cycle. I forgot that during the period of the New Moon, where I recharge my energy once in the month, that I am cut off from this world."
"Wait, what?" Jack suddenly asked, and I looked over to see the only Guardian who could bring themselves to question MiM, only being a loyal follower of his for a short period of time. Short enough to still view him as an adult and not and idol, and therefore someone he could easily lash out against. As the other eyes fell on him he looked at MiM suspiciously, asking, "Why didn't anyone tell me about this?"
"'Cuz we didn't know, eitha'." Aster's voice was slightly surprising to hear, and even more so with the slight edge in it, his face taught and the war still waging behind his eyes...though, if I truly concentrated hard enough, I could almost see one side winning favor over the other. Now, all eyes were on MiM, who was looking up and trying to maintain composure, but I could see it, see the crack in the mask, wanting to peel it back and truly show his colors, this man who feared nothing but losing his own power over others.
"..Yes, I understand that this has not been mentioned, but I did not want to worry others of a time where I would be absent, nor alert enemies of a time where you would be without help." He reasoned, his voice coaxing and persuading, but I felt a shift in the air of what previously would have happened. Previously, they would have eaten that up. They would have swallowed the bait and reiterated about how 'kind' and 'thoughtful' he was.
Now, I sensed their suspicion. I sensed their questioning. It was odd, it was slightly surprising, but...I looked over, saw Tooth's uncomftorble look over to Astrid. Astrid looked from MiM to the poor, confused Guardian and ever-so-slightly shook her head. MiM was too caught up in looking at North, who cleared his throat and continued to explain to Astrid what happened while she slept.
"Manny and I spoke once New Moon passed, said he had feeling of something very bad having happened. I explained all I could of situation, and then we discussed...Plan B." He said, almost uncomftroblly. I felt Astrid tense, felt a spike of something that wasn't fear, noticing how I could read her other emotions in ways completely different from reading the fears of others. Call it forewarning, call it spending most of my immortal life with her. Whatever it was, it was telling me that whatever North had just said brushed a raw nerve.
"Plan B?" She asked, her tone so actually controlled that it had the exact opposite affect, the air in the room suddenly stopping, an electric feel of unease growing. I saw the others tense, Aster's ears perking up, registering something the others couldn't. Astrid wasn't looking at North, more so at MiM, even she knowing those words were not ones Nicholas would normally use. She knew what mouth had put them in his head.
"What exactly was Plan A?"She asked, tone measured, tone controlled, me eyeing her both warningly and on-edge, ready to intervene. Her eyes were darker than normal, her hands tensed on her kneese, the only indicators that anything were wrong other than the glare of absolute hatred on her face. "Were we just going to wait until I got shot and hope that would satisfy him? Or were you planning on letting me take care of him on my own while you conveniantly couldn't reach us?"
The room was dead silent, but it was a silence teetering on uproar. A silence being pressed and bent until just before that moment when it broke harshly, my eyes flickering all over the room to see North forming words in his mind to deny Astrid's statement, seeing Tooth looking to and from Astrid and MiM with reassuring words on her tongue. Sandy had a finger raised, a conflicted and desperate look on his face with a pile of sand floating above his head, not yet forming an image. Jack had his grip on his staff tightened, his breathing labored as he struggled to take a side, mouth hung slightly open.
Aster's eyes held something far different from the others', though. His mouth was not open, his eyes were not flickering, and the tense signals from his ruffling fur and stick-straight ears was not from discomfort nor confliction. No, in fact, my eyes remained on Asters quite a bit longer than the others, because part of me wanted to know if he could really change this fast, or if this had been in him the whole time. If he still did not know, would he still look this furious towards his precious MiM?
His eyes were dark, his look seething and giving off the idea that he was about to rip MiM into shreds before Astrid could even speak next, and part of me...part of me almost grew a bit nervous. This was something Astrid had wanted. Something she'd waited for her whole life. For Aster to fight for her, not against her. But now, getting this, I wondered if it would not just add to her fear, that fear she had that this all was too good, that things like this didn't last for her.
"...What happened has happened. Who I was in my past does not dictate who I will be in my future. My past mistakes will not define my future decisions." MiM's words froze me to my spot, my eyes flickering over to him, feeling Astrid immediatly tense next to me, frozen under MiM's dark and unreadable gaze. "...Were those the exact words you spoke to me on the day you left?"
Astrid was silent, not even shifting in her seat, the only sound to be heard being the winds whistling outside the window. Looking back on it now, I probably should have paid more attention to those howling winds. Or at least graced the window with a glance.
"You see, Astrid," MiM said, a tone in his voice as he spoke to her that I'd never heard before, a tone of seriousness, a tone void of desperation. I fixed my eyes onto him again, seeing her reflection in his eyes. She sat with a glare, hands balled into fists in her lap where normally she'd be able to hide them in a pocket, "Regardless of reasons, regardless of what either of us did wrong unto the other, that day you chose to leave, you left me. But you never left my protection.
"You are and always will be one of my spirits, one of those I hold very dear. Had I known anything such as this were going to take place, I would have done what I should have done a long time ago. What I plan to do now that Hal has crossed the line." He finished, and for the first time I witnessed a speechless Astrid. Not that she was shocked, not that she was humbled. I looked over and saw her eyes narrowed, fists still clenched to the point of the knuckles turning white. Yes, she was still furious.
But she was holding it in. And for Astrid, that was something groundbreaking. My hand twitched to move over to hers, to reassure her that everything was okay and that she was doing the right thing by not exploding, that now was not the time, but I kept it still with my other hand. Now was also not the time to hint at anything, anything at all, between Astrid and me.
"Whataya talkin' 'bout?" Aster spoke up, and all eyes turned to the still slightly angry Pooka, raising a brow and asking with hands toying with a boomerang, "There's somethin' ya can do 'bout this that ya knew 'bout before?"
"Aster, es-"
"I asked Manny."
Even my own brow raised at this, mimicking the look in the faces of each Guardian, Astrid, and MiM himself. Aster, the one that I assumed was the most attatched to MiM out of the whole jolly lot, actually spoke like...well, like Astrid. Angry. Defiant. Suspicious. And suddenly, I wished I could go into the Pooka's mind, see how much he had been thinking lately.
"Aster." MiM said, cautiously but with his regal air, straightening a bit and gracefully splaying his hands out in front of him, "This is something that you must understand is not easy for me to even consider. Regardless of actions, each of you holds a piece of me, withstands a place in my own heart. You are to me as close as children, perhaps even closer."
"Ya got some pretty crook ideas of how ta treat kids, Manny. Kinda ironic, in'it?" Aster asked, and Astrid and I exchanged a shocked glance, her eyes wide as she mouthed 'wow', me giving a nod in agreement.
"Aster, vat has gotten into-"
"As I told Astrid," MiM retorted, his voice suddenly underlined with a tense defense, "What I have done in the past was a mistake, and we cannot be judged for now from who we previosly were."
"Who ya are now wasn' even gonna tell me how ya messed with my own bloody memories, so don' go an' tell me how I'm yer child, or how ya neva' let us all believe in lies without even steppin' in ta tell us the real story. Tha' wasn' even part a yer plan, was it? So shove the 'protection' crap an' get on with how yer gonna fix this mess." Aster's voice dripped with venom, and I wished I hadn't been so caught up in other things to take note of any change in this man. For it was truly one drastic change, leaving everyone in the room shifting uncomftrobly in shock and indecision.
And MiM was floored. He paused, and when I gathered up the being to look over at him, I saw the horror, I saw the crumbling surface, and most of all I heard the fear. A fear come to life. I could almost hum along to it, if I didn't want to stay utterly silent and listen to MiM's next words. They were delayed, MiM's hands slowly curling inwards, palms lightly facing the table, eyes crinkled, mouth partially open. He looked like a man. Not a diety. And I was sure he was beginning to realize that.
I'd lived my entire existance waiting for this moment. Waiting for the Guardians to see that their precious 'Manny' couldn't protect them forever, that he wasn't the man they thought he was...and now that I was living in this moment, now that I got to see it first hand...it was more pitying than anything. The Guardians were still there, they weren't going to lose any power nor be any less jolly. Possibly go through a grieving period, but they would be the same.
All there was was a broken and feeble man who had the curtain pulled.
"Hey guys, as much as I love this, and I mean love this, whatever you did to my chest is seriously starting to burn and I need a shower. You mind speeding it up?" Astrid asked, my eyes flickering down to her, specifically the area over her sternum where I knew the closed wound lay. Where I knew what it looked like. Where I knew she would see, and the resulting aftermath.
"...As I gave Hal his life back," MiM said, voice stunted, gravelly, the pain and the struggle evident in each forced word, "As I can take it away from him. It is something I am...aware of, but have never had to do. I know how. I know when it is needed. But never has anyone been deserving of it...until now. Spirits have become mischevious, spirits have had arguments, but never have they made their own armies. Never have they slipped so hard into insanity. Never have they taken such drastic steps to destroy another...
"...And before this gets out of hand, I know I must stop it. Child or no child, this is a father's sacrifice for the rest of his children..." His voice trailed off, and as it did North mercifully picked it up, his own tone serious and trying to reign in control of the situation.
"Manny and I have long talk ahead of us, but basic outline es this: Manny es not allowed to say how, for fear of information falling into wrong hands accidentally, but he will take the given spirithood from Hal. This will be done by simple bait-and-switch...just instead of switch, there will be Guardians laying in wait to protect bait, Pitch Black ready to fight off creatures that we are too weak to fight against completely, and Man in Moon taking advantage of situation to perform his..task."
It took me all of half a second to understand what he had said.
"If you think forone bloody second that I will allow-!"
"Fine. Sounds good to me. I'm hitting the showers." Astrid cut me off as I seethed, my wide-eyed stare falling onto her as she pushed out from the table, standing and shaking her hands so that the sleeves would fall over them. She looked completely apathetic. But I was most assuredly not letting her off like that. I stood suddenly from my chair, the screeching of it against the wood making her wince a bit, turning half to me as I slammed a hand down on the table in fury.
"Fine? Fine?! You call allowing yourself as bait 'fine'?! This man almost killed you once, I won't let him do it again!" I shouted, not so much in anger as in desperation. North's plan, if he was truly serious, was to use Astrid to lure in Hal, a man who had splayed her blood on my hands, a man who made her look at me with that fear, that look that I remembered that still cut off my breath when I thought about it.
"Pitch, stop being over-dramatic." She muttered, shaking her head. But no. No, this was not happening. Things were not going to be as simple as this. I could feel it in my gut, in my lungs, in my heart. I could feel myself losing her again, my body remembering the pain, the horror, the longing, the explosive fear. The thought of living without her. The impossibility of it. Especially now.
"Overly-dramatic?" I asked in an accusing tone, taking a step forward, casting off the looks of the others, "If not wanting to see you dying, if not wanting your blood across my hands, if not wanting you to be taken from me is being 'over-dramatic', then fine! I'm being fucking over-dramatic! But I will in no way allow you to go through with this!" I shouted at her, shadows darting across the walls quickly as she glared defiantly, arms pulled tightly to her sides.
"First of all, it's not a New Moon anymore, I can't die! And second of all, who ever said you made my choices for me? Who ever said that you had a fucking say in this?" She spat, and I could feel the hot anger coil in my chest, could feel my breath grow short and my jaw tight. And every nerve in my body was screaming to lash out, to take her by her shoulders and shake her and scream at her how horribly I could not lose her, to make her understand that she was a part of me I was not prepared to surrender, not after so much of me had already been taken.
How whatever we had could not simply be thrown away because she didn't want to deal with a meeting. We meant more than that. She meant more than that.
"I don't have a say? I don't have..." I paused, taking in a deep, deep breath, and reigned myself in enough to rush forward and grab her by the arm, tight enough so that she could fight back but my grip wouldn't waver. Without a word, as she shouted out and tried to wrench her arm from my grip, I threw open the door behind her and drug both her and myself out.
"Hey, wait!" Tooth's voice called.
"We'll be back." I snapped loudly and sharply, slamming the door closed behind me loud and strongly enough to rattle the walls. It was all I could do to not lash out against her, or send a devistating explostion of fearlings out in a vent of pure rage. Not rage against Astrid, exactly, moreso the idea and her acceptance of it.
"Let me the fuck go!" She shouted, but I didn't release her until we were well down the hall, moving her in front of me roughly and letting go only when she harshly ripped it from my grasp, seething and glaring at me with an anger one rarely saw, even in Astrid. "What the fuck is your problem?!" She shouted, a passing yeti jumping at the sudden noise and scurrying off.
I breathed in a sharp breath to try and curb my anger, snapping out at a lower volume than her, rather not having this aired in front of the Guardians and MiM,
"My problem is you so willingly going into this when you know Hal and what he is cabable of! With what happened to you last time one would think you could at least think before being bait for him! What if he sees you and has other ways, other plans of how to hurt you?! What if he knows you survived and is planning already?"
"There's no way he knows! You weren't there, you didn't see the look in his eyes-"
"You're right, I wasn't there!" I shouted, and it was so sudden, so sharp, that she actually jumped and continued glaring, but with a tone of surprise, blinking and pressing her back to the wall behind her. And I should have stopped there, I should have reigned myself in and taken control of the situation...but I couldn't. I tried inwardly, and I couldn't. I couldn't stop the words that came forth, and I couldn't stop the shouting, I couldn't stop the pain and the lump in my throat. I couldn't because I was afraid that if I did she would do this, and I would lose her. And that had never been an option.
"I wasn't there when you were shot, no, but I was there to see you covered in your own blood! I was there to see the fear in your eyes because you knew, didn't you?! Didn't you?! You knew you were going to die in that moment, and you knew that the last thing I ever would have said to you would have been those words that I would carve out of my own fucking mouth to take back!
"I was there to see the only person in this world who understands everything about me and still accepts me dying on a hospital bed! I was there to know that he had almost won, that he almost took you away from me! And I was there to save you when everyone else had given up hope, and do you know what, Astrid? I did it once, but what if I can't do it again? What if I can't save you again?
"You are the only person who knows all my flaws, who knows my past and stays with me! You are the only person who can make me feel as if I haven't become some horrific monster, as if I'm not this terrible thing that my daughter remembered me as! You are it, Astrid, you're all that I have and all that I want! I can't lose you, not without losing the better part of myself, and you just don't fucking care, do you?!
"You just want to go out and get it over with, you just don't want to deal with the others and you don't want some big fuss over everything, but you know what? I need you." My voice broke into a hoarse whisper, the lump in my throat allowing me only to swallow painfully and take a ragged breath. And all of the anger had left Astrid's face, and all I could see was the surprise, the pain, the realization. And I still couldn't stop, because I was already imagining it, remembering the blood, her look, the feel, the slow chill of her skin, her pain, her fear, the apologetic looks...
I leaned forward and squeezed my eyes shut, hands shakily finding her forearms and holding them as tightly as I could, which wasn't tight at all, and pushed on as much as I could, my voice quiet and gravelly, hoarse and forced.
"And I seem to be the only one who cares about losing you. Because the others might be able to, but I can't. And damn you for getting this close to me, damn you for all of it, for all of this, because if I had never met you then I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't hurt this much over losing anything that isn't me, because before you that's all I cared about. Myself. But now there's you, and you dwarf everything, and I hate it, but there's nothing I can do but protect you and...and..."
"Pitch..." She whispered tragically, and I suddenly pulled her to me and firmly wrapped an arm around her waist, the other lacing my fingers through her hair and holding her to me, feeling as if I let go then she'd leave and carry this out, that I'd lose her, and every part of me was screaming to keep her here until she stopped thinking about leaving. I buried my face into her hair, throwing any dramaticism of strength and 'cool-and-calm' out the window.
"I can't lose you." I whispered, and felt her arms quickly wrap tightly around me, one hand absently performing the motion I'd done to her so many times, her fingertips running up and down my spine lightly. She couldn't reach my neck, but got as far as she could before going back down, doing all she could to soothe me when it was her who deserved it, her who was going through too much too soon.
"Pitch, you know it's our only choice. If we don't do this, who knows what Hal can think up next...and what happens if we don't have a plan by the next New Moon? Everyone can't look after me forever, be were barely able to do it once..." She paused, her voice soft and offering no branch for argument. And as she spoke, I could feel her breaking down every argument, every word, and every excuse to keep her out of this while simultaniously comforting me.
It was her 'take-no-shit' attitude and way of securing me working together in a way that only Astrid could make them. And I knew she was right. And she knew I was right. And we both knew what was going to happen, we were just far too difficult to let it happen easy. I felt her face shift and her lips pressed a chaste kiss to the hollow of my throat, whispering against it in a way that made me exhale, every part of me lightening and relaxing,
"If you think for one second that I'm going to leave you, then you're wrong."
"Don't throw my sappy words back at me."
"Don't be a drama queen."
"...I'll have to face them again, won't I?"
"You made the scene. Clean up your mess."
I took one last moment to press her to me before stepping back. And, as fate would have it, just in time, for the moment I stepped away the door to the room we had just been in flew open and North came out, one hand holding firmly to the door and a worried expression on his face. He looked at both of us not more than ten feet away, and huffed, eyebrows raised and eyes worried with a cautious look on his face. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. I knew that look all too well...
"We have problem."
Of course we do.