DON'T YELL AT ME. lol Ahem. Yes. I LIVE. Just barely. ha...
My newest love is Sebastian by Anne Bishop. Pitch is just as equally fascinated by the Black Jewels Trilogy. (and I think he has it bad for Daemon.)
Newest installment. It will be difficult to read. Next one should be longer. You have been warned. Love to all.
The days pass. Jack remains secluded for the majority of them, trying to garner the courage to confront Pierre a second time. Pitch visits. The Nightmare King can practically see Jack turning cold. The animosity could become an entity at any time.
Jack stands at the window of his bedroom, overlooking the grounds. The sky is overcast with blossoming clouds and the promise of snow. Pitch stands in the doorway, watching.
The ash blond has yet to remove the ring, carved and crafted from the enchanted wood of a certain sprite's staff. The sight calls a sick smile to his face. The ice was gone by the time he awoke, but Jack does suspect that something about the ring makes him more powerful. So, like a safety blanket, he keeps it close. Intuitive. Clever. Beautifully naive.
Jack's voice is gentle and dead when he asks, "If a friend wrongs you, in a way that cannot be reconciled, what would you do?"
Pitch considers for a moment, finding something hilarious about the whole thing. Morbid mirth. "I am not your most ideal candidate to ask. I am a creature of solitude." Jack is still under the impression that Pitch does not know precisely what went on in the cell. His vague hints and descriptions, meant to keep the secret hidden, only underscore the Nightmare King's victory.
Jack exhales, a broken and scattered sound, turning his eyes up towards the clouds. He swallows, willing away the tears that brim in his eyes. "The worst has been done," he says, as though he is reminding himself and has forgotten Pitch entirely. He closes his eyes and centers himself. "Nothing can hurt me now."
Pitch's ambers travel down the attractive slope of the frost fairy's back. "It is most unwise to challenge pain, Jack."
When Jack opens his eyes again, there is an electric blue glow to them. "Then let it take up arms against me."
Pitch has been preparing for this day for some time now. Pierre is growing weaker, just weak enough more appropriately, for Jack to at least leave an impression. It will not due to let Pierre be in control. Jack's anger will be too easily slaked by his profuse apologies. Pitch never suspects for Jack to exceed his expectations. But underestimating the wrath of the betrayed has always been a flaw of his.
"Jack," Pierre says, as though seeing him is a relief. The way his eyes trace his figure sends a chill over his skin. Something within him resonates with the cold. Pierre's cell is too warm for his liking. He can smell the man's sweat, his musk. The smells assault his senses. Jack is uncertain what to expect. He inhales, inclines his chin, and prepares himself to speak. Pierre beats him to the punch.
"Back for more?"
Jack's anger compounds exponentially, the frothing white hot rage turning glacial, bitter cold. Jack is not aware of the sudden temperature fluctuation in the room, but Pierre is. Any thought of mending the rift between them is gone. Forgiveness is impossible. Unthinkable. Jack knows precisely where to go from here. "Yes."
Pierre looks both pleased and pleasantly surprised. "What about the judge?"
"He cannot see us now. You're mine, recall?" Jack disbands the shackles fettering his wrists and ankles. He ignores the pang of pity when he sees the red welts on his skin. Pierre finds his feet. Jack does not bother to ask himself how the man can find the strength to do so. Lust is every man's Gatorade.
Jack starts to undress. Something stirs inside him, something wretched, skulking, and dark. It grows, takes form, and finds many footholds in his broken heart. The bruises have healed, for the most part. Jack's pale form, hale and unharnessed, calls to Pierre. The man crosses the stone floor. Jack, stripped down to nothing but the ring, waits for him. "Have you realized?" Pierre asks. "Have you finally come to your senses? You would never choose Pitch over me."
Jack smiles up at him – plastic, yet alluring. "I have." He can feel the thing inside him coil up into a striking position when Pierre reaches around to lay a very deliberate hand on his back. The hand slides lower until it finds his ass. It squeezes hard enough to leave fingerprints. It pulls Jack in, against the weapon upon which he was broken. Pierre meets his lips. Jack closes his eyes. He not only draws on the anger at Pierre, but also channels the anger he harbors at Adam.
He succumbs to the kiss, giving Pierre precisely the nasty, desperate sort of embrace he craves. The dreams crash into him. He is bombarded with flashbacks. Pierre's other hand rakes down his leg and finds the catch of his knee. He hikes Jack's leg up to his thigh. Two swift strides has Jack pinned between the man's body and the wall. He moves his lips to Jack's neck, sucking, biting, and tonguing the skin viciously. Jacks palms comb his chest and arms.
Pierre starts fumbling with the fastens of his pants. Jack opens his eyes, flooded with some unnatural light, staring vacantly at the ceiling. The rings begins to glow, the light spidering up into his veins, surging through him.
The skin under Jack's hand, the skin of Pierre's chest, starts to make a sizzling sound. A purplish blue handprint appears. Pierre recoils just enough to break from Jack's neck. Jack switches the momentum, spinning them to pin Pierre against the wall. Jack crashes his lips into Pierre's with bruising force. Jack leeches more hatred into his mouth. The same purplish blue color starts to seep into the man's skin, spreading from his lips into his cheeks. Burning. Cold burning.
Pierre's eyes are unnaturally wide as pain roars through him. His hands are nearly black by now, attacked every time they touch Jack's skin. Jack cups his hand and pushes it against the man's loins. Pierre screams, his cheeks splitting apart, tearing like paper.
"Is it everything you imagined?" Jack hisses in a tone of voice he is not accustomed to using. By now, Pieere's hands are all but gone, inoperative. He straddles Pierre, who is spotted with frost bite. His face is nearly unrecognizable, as is the rotten spear that dangles between his legs. Jack's hands rake over the man's abdomen, leaving vicious charred lines. Hollow and furious, Jack pays no heed to the strange abilities. Something drives him on – something irrational and primal. Primitive.
He is finally in control of his fate.
He is finally strong enough.
And Pierre is going to pay. He is going to pay for Adam too. In full.
He is consumed by his pain and delighted by the results. Jack's hand slides up and closes around Pierre's throat. The touch could be construed as sexual at first until he starts to squeeze. A smile keeps appearing on his face, malicious and satisfied by the way the man whimpers and writhes, vying for control and fighting for his life. The frostbite spreads beneath the skin, effectively collapsing his airway. Pierre's body seizes. Jack trembles.
"Do you like that?" Jack hisses through a deranged grin. "Cum. Cum for me. You're so close. You're so close, aren't you?" Pierre can only respond with a gurgling, choking noise.
Jack is oblivious to the tears streaming down his cheeks. He releases his neck when Pierre stops struggling. "Still stiff," Jack chokes out, the gravity of the situation and subsequent pain striking him like an oncoming train. The glow leaves his eyes, retreating into the ring. "You're just never satisfied, are you!" he screams. "Because it wasn't enough that I loved you like a father! It wasn't enough that I lost Adam too!"
Jack presses his wrist against the bridge of his nose and hangs his head, falling apart at the seams. He starts to weep unreservedly. Something nudges his shoulder. Jack sniffs and turns his head. A great black horse stands beside him, its eyes aglow with a mix of concern and curiosity. Jack watches her with watery eyes, too delirious with anguish and grief to question how she got inside. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters.
She extends her neck and nuzzles his cheek, effectively blotting away the tears that linger there. Without thinking, Jack turns his body and wraps his arms around her muzzle. Her cries against the flat of her face.
She stays with him, not only because it is Pitch's will, but also because the corpse on the floor means a feast.
Pitch, of course, saw the whole thing. He relinquished his hold, his influence, on Pierre with the first bite of frost. His mind reels, half unable to process the magnificence he just witnessed firsthand.
"Mine immaculate dream made of breath and skin… How I've waited for you," he whispers.