Sooo, this part got a little darker then I'd intended, considering it picks up right after Chapter 5 of 'Look After You,' which was pretty much a comedy. However it was written from Jack's perspective, best I can figure is that Pitch apparently didn't find it all that funny...

Dark themes and a fluff factor of zero kids, here there be Dragons...

His thick, sodden robe is deadweight; an albatross about his shoulders trying to drag him back into the cold depths. He struggles, spluttering and swearing in tongues that did not originate on Earth, but, finally, eventually, Pitch Black heaves his exhausted body from the accursed waters and onto the ice that Frost had ever so kindly left him exactly for that purpose. He sprawls there momentarily, energy depleted, soaked to the bone and feeling every inch of the resultant chill. He's immune to drowning, immune to hypothermia, immune to Pneumonia from the water in his lungs, but that does not mean that thrashing about in Jack's lake was not trying in its own right. Truthfully, with his believers at an all-time low, the unexpected physical activity has depleted what little reserves he had managed to build up to make this little foray into the wider world. With a pathetic little noise he only dared make because he was alone, Pitch braces his hands beneath him, pushing himself up into a crawling position. With the last dregs of his strength he makes his way like an undignified infant onto dry land, already feeling the thin ice begin to weaken and buckle under his weight without the winter spirit around to solidify it. Once safely away from the threat of not-drowning, he collapses from hands to elbows, only barely able to roll himself onto his back as his final reserves give out, leaving him flopped like a forgotten child's toy at the root of large fir tree.

The next few moments are devoted strictly to breathing, taking each breath as far into himself as possible, holding it for a three count, and then releasing it slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth; pause, repeat. Slowly, Pitch's heartbeat returns to normal, the tension begins to fade, and a modicum of strength seeps back into tired limbs. A nap would restore him much faster, but mostly invisible or not Pitch has made many enemies and he'd not contemplate lowering his guards so far when he was as useless and exposed as he is now. No, true rest would have to wait until he could haul his sorry carcass back to the safety of his lair, where none but the stupidly brave or bravely stupid dared to tread. In fact the last person to have set foot in his home had been...

Jack Frost.

It was always bloody Jack Frost.

For a spirit that had been little more than a passing annoyance to all and sundry mere months ago, the boy had taken to Guardianship like a bird to air, slotting himself neatly among the big four like he'd been at their sides all along.

And now, he apparently had designs on the last Pooka.

Pitch can't stop the harsh bark of un-amused laughter that wrenches itself free. The Pooka? Laughable, truly. Winter and Spring would never gel, would never be anything but a failure looking for a place to happen. And Jack, silly little Jack Frost, fancies himself in love?

Well fine then, let him be in love.

Let them be happy, let them speak sweet words and gentle touches, let them partake of each other as lovers would, Pitch knew better.

Pitch knew that lost lambs like Jack Frost didn't get happy endings. Pitch understood the nature of creatures like Jack, because Jack was like him. Jack had edges and angles the Guardians, simpering, weak-minded fools that they were wouldn't even know to acknowledge! Jack was cold, Jack was death, had died on this very lake, carried the stigmata of that with him, a burial shroud upon his thin shoulders. Jack could be cruel; casually, carelessly, Pitch had seen it in the centuries since the child's rebirth. Jack could be as neglectful as he was attentive if the mood struck him so, flighty and as easily distracted as he was easily bored.

Jack could have been beautiful, stunning even, with traces of Pitch's black sand in his hair, against that smooth skin, turning pure white tones into hues of ash. Jack could have been his Fearling Prince, blackened fingers wielding a frozen staff, icicles clinging to the folds of his clothes and his delicate earlobes, eyes sunken and wild and lips and fingertips blue with the death that slept in his chest. Jack could have been incredible, unstoppable, a force of fury and wrath upon this blighted Earth, standing proud before the masses, their thin, trembling forms weeping on their knees at his frostbitten feet. Jack could have conquered, could have ruled had he so chosen.

Jack could have been feared, and Pitch would have stood at his back, watching the carnage over his shoulder with a maniacal grin.

Cold and Dark.

Together they would have been perfection.

But spoiled, selfish, whorish JACK FROST had CHOSEN THE POOKA.

"Let them love!" Pitch snarls as he staggers to his feet, feeling suddenly renewed by the rush of rage into his black blood. He stumbles forward, leaning heavily on trees as he makes his way back to the recently reopened entrance to his home. He makes it nearly to the edge of the hole before his legs give way, spilling him onto the ground mere feet from the darkness and silence of his pit. He gasps, pants wildly, frustrated by his weakness and angry with the world, grey fingertips digging into the wet earth beneath him. Above him, the Moon shines merrily, perfect spectator to his difficulties, his indignities, and Pitch snaps, throwing his head back to howl into the night.

"LET THEM LOVE! LET THEM HAVE THEIR FAIRYTALE! LET THEM ROT IN THEIR SACCHARINE DREAMS, LET THEM INDULGE, AND SLIP INTO COMPLACENCY! WHEN THEIR GUARDS COME DOWN, WHEN THEIR BACKS ARE TURNED, THERE I WILL BE! I'LL HAUNT THEIR SHADOWS FOR ETERNITY FOR THE PERFECT MOMENT, MARK MY WORDS OLD FRIEND, EVER HAVE I WAITED, AND EVER SHALL I WAIT AGAIN!"

Pitch's voice breaks, giving under the strain of the abuse, and his tirade ends abruptly. Without the sound of his voice to fill the clearing, the darkness seems to press in, both comfort and burden. Pitch curls into, body tucked into a tight curve upon the ground, aching and debilitated. There he lay, stretched out on a bed of fall leaves within arm's reach of his goal, perhaps unable to move the last few inches, or perhaps simply without the will to do so.

"Let them love." He croaks; quiet words like a gunshot against the silence, voice thick with the bitterness in his throat.

Yes, let them love. Let them taste the sweetest of dreams, before Pitch tears it all apart and replaces it with the blackest of nightmares. Let them have something to lose, it will only make the inevitable fall all the more poetic.

Pitch pushes himself up once again on shaking arms, filthy and undone. He shifts his weight to move only to keel forward, head and shoulders over the welcoming darkness of the pit. His arms and legs burns, forcing a pained groan from his lips as he heaves and kicks, pushing himself forward just far enough to let gravity take over, tumbling headfirst down into the absolute dark waiting to cradle him to its empty bosom.

Jack could have been his, he thinks as his eyes slip shut, teetering just on the edge of stupor.

Jack had almost been his.

But Pitch did not give second chances, and he did not forgive rejection. The day would come when he would return, and he'd see the Guardians all dead by his hand. Yes, they would fall, but the last of them would be Jack Frost, so that he may know that the attentions of the Nightmare King were thorough and uncompromising. Even now, Pitch relished the thought of Jack's face as he watched his Pooka lover bleed out before him, unable to stop the inevitable. If he died for trying, Pitch swore he'd see Frost suffer for his offenses against him before snuffing him out like a weak candle.

One day, Pitch would win, and the world would tremble.

Soothed by the thought, the boogeyman finally sleeps.