((AN: So "Onyx" came from the fact that somewhere in the script it mentions that the Nightmare that Pitch always keeps around him and rides on is named Onyx. Which is such a delightfully stupid name that I fell in love with it because Pitch giving his favorite ponies dumb names is the best thing ever))
Pitch loses himself in rushing air and the whispers of the Nightmares. He sinks deep into the fear and anxiety they leave in their wake; feels the unease of others drown his own thoughts out. The journey back home is far more peaceful this way.
He's absorbed by fear, listening to the secrets his beauties tells him as they slide along shadow into the winding tunnels that lead home. The herd is restless, caught up in the excitement and high emotion of the day and they swarm around him in an excited cloud as they emerge into the expansive caverns. He lets them brush against his hands and murmur voiceless in his ear, though he keeps one hand firmly on the largest mare.
He doesn't like to say that he picks favorites, but Onyx was always...special to him.
Eventually the others disperse to find their victims but he keeps Onyx close, buries his fingers into the shifting spines of the war horse's mane and focuses on her special brand of fear. She always created the most subtle and beautiful horrors. Hers are the soft sighs of the night and quiet fears that keep mortals awake and wide-eyed in terror of something they can never explain. If he listens to them then he can drown everything else out, he can ignore the thoughts clamoring about in his head.
There is, however, a price for his attachment. She knows his fear far, far more deeply and intimately than anything else. The others see his terrors, his sharp sudden stabs of anxiety. But she sees the deeper scars. Onyx has always been able to find the one thread that would undo him and pull it just so.
So it's only a matter of time until she snorts and shifts, twisting her neck to look at him. As soon as her eyes fix on him Jack's words are piling up in his mind.
He sucks in a sharp breath, fingers digging into her neck. His insides are being wrenched and twisted and he wants to pull away, wants to cover his ears and deny the words that keep echoing without end-
Every time someone walks through me it's like they've punched through and left me hollow and everything is hot and empty because they took it all with them!
His breath catches and his lungs seize up and he doesn't want to hear this he can't hear this not again-
And you keep trying...you keep trying as hard as you can to make them see you. Even if it never works you can't stop trying.
"Stop..." He croaks out, feeling his fingers begin to shake.
They smile or laugh or keep doing whatever they were doing while you try to figure out where your lungs went and try to get your heart to start beating again.
He does cover his ears then, fingers clenching into his hair as he hunches over Onyx's neck. He has to block it has to make it STOP. It's too much, too much too much he can't listen to Jack ripping out his every fear and vulnerable terror again it's too much-
You saw me though.
But Jack hadn't been laying out Pitch's fears. There were his own.
I didn't get why you let me follow you around all the time.
Jack had been a distraction! Something to bide the time with and talk at but he knew he KNEW.
I got it when I saw someone walk through you and your face looked the same way I always felt.
Pitch feels like everything between his ribs is being slowly dragged out, twisted and yanked until nothing is left and Jack knows he knows what that is.
Pitch had always known that Jack was lonely, that Jack wasn't believed in. But he figured such a young thing wouldn't understand the crushing desperation that comes from real loneliness.
Jack was young and bright and too full of laughter and he shouldn't be able to feel the same way Pitch did. He COULDN'T know what that felt like!
-the same way I always felt...
"It doesn't matter!" He finally snarls. "He's gone! And it's for the best! He's certainly not showing his face again after all of that! And I'm glad!" He snaps when Onyx simply keeps her brilliant eyes on him. "I can't- I can't have that around!"
His hands slowly drop from his head, going back to Onyx's thick neck and he spreads his fingers over the corded sand and shadow, his voice going softer. "It'd be too much. It's better...better if he is gone. I'm made to be on my own. It's enough, just knowing that someone else is feeling this. I don't want it magnified by him being here."
He lets out a long, low breath, the tightness in him melting away with it and leaving him feeling loose and worn and empty. "He's gone, and it's far better this way." He says, listening hard to how the words sound so he can remember them.
"Far better." He repeats.
He rolls his shoulders, squares them to keep going as he always has. Soon this will be a memory, one of many that-
There's a brush of cold on the back of his neck.
He sucks in cold air and feels everything tighten up again. Jack wouldn't come back. It didn't matter what he had said he wouldn't come back after-
"What is wrong with you?! Did you just wake up today and go 'I think this is a day for making stupid decisions'?! You can't just LEAVE! How old are you again?"
He turns slowly, feeling coiled and tense and Jack is there. He's glaring and clutching his staff in a white knuckled fist. The air is crackling with his anger, but he's right there.
Pitch's hands clench and unclench at his sides; he's suddenly unsure what to do with them. There's too much energy thrumming through him and it's paralyzing even though he feels jittery all over. He can only follow Jack with his eyes as the boy begins pacing in front of him.
"I mean, that wasn't easy back there ok? And you just took off! Yeah great thanks for not stealing anything but you seriously just decided that the best way to end a conversation was to leave?! This is you! You're really good at the talking! So why all this sulking silence and-" Jack stops and throws his hands up in exasperation, "What now!? What is with that face?!"
Pitch blinks, he hadn't been aware that his face was doing anything in particular. He gets the feeling he should answer quickly if he doesn't want to make Jack more angry.
And why should he care if this child is angry at him?
"You came back." He says, then mentally kicks himself. Of course he's back, he's right there! "I meant...why did you come back?"
"Did you not want me to?"
Pitch opens his mouth to say 'yes' then shuts it. That...is a dangerous question.
There's something vulnerable in Jack's eyes as he stares at Pitch expectantly, a longing that's hard to look away from.
"I don't know." He says quietly. "I thought I didn't, but I am...not sure now."
Jack barks out a tired, worn laugh and runs a hand over his face. Pitch doesn't like that laugh, it doesn't suit Jack. "Yeah, well, that makes two of us I guess. You're ridiculous you know that?"
"But you came back." Pitch is still having trouble processing that. There's no reason for Jack to come back and nothing is explaining it.
Jack looks up at him for a few seconds, then gives a small, tentative smile like he had back at the Tooth Palace. "Yeah, I did."
Pitch's skin feels too tight for his body, the air is thin and cold and that doesn't explain anything it doesn't explain why Jack is HERE. He's standing there small and slight and nothing but elbows and knees and a determined stare hiding underneath a small easy smile.
How had Pitch never noticed how small the boy was? Jack is such a tiny thing but somehow he's taking up the entire world right now and refuses to leave.
His hands feel tense again and he can't stop them from clenching and unclenching in quick spasms. He should say something, but for once he has no idea what to say to this. It's like he'd never actually SEEN Jack in all the years the boy has been hovering around him.
There's the tight grip on his staff, the way his fingers will shift and turn white as he waits nervously for Pitch to do something besides stare. There's the small curl of his mouth full of hope and just a touch of fear and who shows fear in a smile? Fear of rejection fear of being cast out fear of being alone all in the lift of the corners of small lips and the tired smudges underneath wide blue eyes.
It's too much. All of it is too much. Those eyes and that smile are more than Pitch can tolerate right now. Jack is more than he can tolerate. Pitch doesn't know how much more he can stand it, seeing all of his own fears and hurt shining out of that smile and captured in gripping hands and tired, lonely blue eyes.
His hands itch at his sides, he wants to reach out and- and do SOMETHING. He wants to shake Jack, throw him. Grab those thin and tiny shoulders and demand to know where Jack came from, where he got the GALL to trap Pitch's pain in his own eyes.
He needs to leave. He needs to get away from that smile. He steps back and phases into the shadow, ignoring Jacks startled yell of "Oh come on!"
Something about losing physical form calms him, dulls the sharp panic in his chest and makes his head feel more clear. "I need to think." He says, congratulating himself on how calm and even he sounds. "You are welcome to stay in the meantime, if you wish."
Jack looks incredulous. "Oh! That's good to know! Thank you ever so much! And where the hell are you running off to this time?"
He doesn't dignify that with an answer, instead he sinks deeper into the shadows until he's far away from that small and demanding presence. He doesn't step back out onto solid stone until he can't feel the cold that follows Jack everywhere.
He's in a dark desolate pit in his home. This is the place where the deeper Nightmares dwell. It's full of hissing and the distant sound of something sliding over water and stone. It's inky black and the air reeks of distant horrors beyond the world and it's perfect.
He stays there for two weeks.
He wouldn't say he was avoiding Jack per se, he just needs to...think things through on his own. Needs to prepare himself for that ice blue stare again.
Jack isn't there when he comes back up to the central cavern. Pitch feels both elated and strangely empty when he realizes the boy is absent. There's a weight lifted from his shoulders but he still finds himself wandering around looking for something.
The odd conflict ends quickly when a breeze announces Jack's return.
He swoops in from the tunnels in a rush of laughter and snow and wind, elated still from whatever he had been getting up to on the surface. The crawling feeling comes back and only escalates when Jack notices him and gives him a wave with raised eyebrows.
Pitch raises his own hand absently, watching to see if he can spot the pain in Jacks face that had been there earlier. There's a strange anticipation as he keeps his eyes on Jack, both dreading and looking for that glimpse of emptiness.
He steps back into shadows as Jack lands, he may be willing to watch Jack, but the idea of talking to him again makes his skin crawl.
Jack simply blinks, then shakes his head with an irritated huff as he flies up to perch on one of the cages.
It had been there, for just a second the spark in his eyes had dimmed just enough for Pitch to see the loneliness there.
Pitch spends a whole new week just watching for glimpses of that blank hollowness. It's unnerving, seeing himself in something as bright as Jack. He stays in the shadows, stays out of sight while he follows the boy whenever he's in the lair.
Jack is always doing something when he's not out; covering stone archways with decorative frost patterns, chasing nightmares, and, on a few strange occasions, talking into the air as if Pitch is next to him.
"I had another kid see me today."
Jack is sitting on one of the larger cages again, while Pitch stays in the shadow underneath. It's fascinating, hearing him talk to nothing at all.
"Apparently his mom had told him stories about me. Said he needs to wear his scarf or Jack Frost would nip his nose off." He laughs at that, a short, cheery noise that is completely out of place in the dark. "He was in a panic at first! Really thought I was going to take his nose! I was tempted to make a few grabs for it, I dunno, maybe you can give him some nightmares about that later."
Pitch snorts to himself at that, as if he would personally make such a trivial nightmare. He goes quiet again when Jack continues.
"There's a few more of them every winter you know. I mean, just one or two. And no one can decide if I'm a lovable fun loving spirit or some horrible trickster." There's another laugh at that. "I don't see why I can't be both!"
Both do fit the boy well.
"I just...you're still pretty stupid. And I don't know what has been with you lately. But...thanks. You know what for."
Pitch steps out from the shadows onto the cage, not really knowing why. There are a lot of things he doesn't know lately. He doesn't know why the sight of this small frail thing makes his hands claw at his sides and makes him want to tear out of his own skin. He doesn't know how he never saw how often the boy looks like he can barely stand from the crushing loneliness that still clings to him, despite the slowly growing pool of belief.
He doesn't know why he still has the golden box with Jack's name on it. Doesn't know why he keeps pulling it out to run his fingers over the engraving as if it'll give up it's secrets with a touch. When he isn't holding it the box is a constant weight against his side, burning cold against him wherever he goes.
He doesn't know why Jack keeps coming back every day.
"Why are you still here?"
Jack starts so hard that he nearly falls off the cage. He grasps the bars beneath him and whips his head around until he sees where Pitch is standing by the heavy chain that holds it up. The boy's eyes light up instantly.
"Hey! There you are!"
"Why. Are you. Still here?" Pitch repeats carefully. He needs Jack to understand how important this is.
Jack's smile fades, eyes dimming and his expression closing off. "Do...you want me to leave?"
Yes. No. Don't ask that.
"That wasn't what I was asking." Is what Pitch settles on. "I want to know why you keep coming back here."
Jack's eyes slide away and he plays with the edge of his cloak. "I wonder that sometimes." He admits slowly. "I guess..." he shrugs, looking back at Pitch with that empty look, "I guess I don't really have anything else."
Niether of us do. Pitch thinks.
And the clawing is back, the near panic welling up in his chest and the air is too cold and too sharp in his lungs. He steps back into shadow, needing to get away from Jack before...he doesn't know what.
He's tired of not knowing things.
But he does know now that Jack needs to leave.
Pitch still can't look at the boy without the air leaving him and his hands tensing and tightening. It hasn't gotten any better, if anything Pitch is seeing more and more of that aching in Jack's eyes that he knows too well.
He doesn't like facing his own loneliness and he certainly doesn't want to keep seeing it reflected in the boy.
So Jack needs to leave. Needs to stop tormenting Pitch with that mix of a bright smile and tired eyes. And it shouldn't be hard, all he has to do is TELL Jack to leave.
Which seems to be easier said than done. Whenever he tries the words choke up in his throat and catch on each other. Leaving him babbling through something else and hurrying away, ignoring the confused furrow to Jacks brow.
He needs to give Jack a reason to leave.
It only takes him a few days to find a solution. Really he should have thought of this weeks ago.
The box is heavy and cold as he slowly pulls it out.
Jack's memories.
I guess I don't really have anything else.
This would be something. If Jack knew who he had been he would perhaps find his purpose. He'd have that and he would leave Pitch alone.
Things could go...back to how they were.
He clenches his fingers on the box, forcing down the slight tremor in his hands as he goes to find Jack. There's no reason for him to keep this little trinket anyway. Such a sentimental thing is useless to him.
Jack is splayed out on the thick stone rail of one of the bridges this time, twirling his staff idly as one leg hangs swinging over the edge. He looks very much at home where he is.
He needs to leave.
"Jack."
Jack doesn't jump this time, just turns his head slightly towards Pitch and raises his eyebrows.
"Well look who it is! To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I felt..." Pitch pauses, he's not really sure how to bring this up so out of the blue. "You should know that I did not come away from the Tooth Palace completely empty handed."
Jack stops twirling his staff and sits up carefully. "Okay..." He says, giving Pitch an odd look, "and you're telling me this because...?"
Pitch turns the box awkwardly in his hands. "You...I found this. It's yours."
Jack freezes, almost literally, the stone under him frosting over as his eyes harden. "No it isn't."
"I can assure you that it is."
"You said those things were memories. Human memories. I came from a lake remember? I don't have one of those things. Can't lose your childhood teeth if you were never a child, Pitch."
Pitch frowns and slowly turns the box so the name is facing Jack. "You were someone else. You may not be human now but at one point...you had something."
Jack is still and quiet as he stares at the name. He looks like he's been punched through and left broken. His whole body shakes as he slowly stands and takes a careful step forward, eyes on the simple engraving.
"That...that's my name. I...how?"
Pitch doesn't say anything, gripping the box to keep himself centered. Jack's eyes are shining and he isn't quite at tears but it's so close. There's a sharp spike of fear in the air that leaves Pitch feeling like he's drowning.
Jack puts a hand out so, so slowly, and Pitch can see how his fingers are trembling.
"I...I had a family? I had a home?"
Pitch has to fight the urge to pull the box out of Jack's reach. "I don't know. You were just someone before you were this. Most of our kind were someone before being called to what we are now."
Jack pauses then, looking up at him. "You said you didn't have any memories either."
"I'm an exception. Fear simply is. I was here before anything else and always will be."
"How do you know? Maybe you were-"
"I wasn't anything!" Pitch snaps, shoving the box a little bit towards Jack. "But you were!"
Jacks eyes dart from Pitch back to the box and he reaches for it haltingly. He gasps like he's physically hurt when he finally touches it and Pitch yanks his hands away as soon as he's sure Jack has a grip on it.
He then takes several steps back, needing to put some distance between himself and the still shivering boy.
"You should be able to open it, though I couldn't tell you how. You'll have to figure that part out on your own."
"Yeah." Jack says distantly, running his hands over the edges and contours of the small golden container. "Yeah...okay...I'm...I'm going to just...go and..."
Leave. Pitch thinks. Go and leave. Stop haunting me.
Jack looks up at him, eyes wide and shining. He looks impossibly small and fragile as he clutches the box to his chest. "Pitch, I just, thanks. You didn't have to...I don't know why you keep-"
"Go." Pitch grits out. His hands feel empty without the box to clutch onto and he can feel the space where it used to lay within his robe.
Jack nods, a quick jerk of his head then pauses for only a few more minutes. It looks like he wants to say something more and Pitch can only sigh in relief when he turns and flies out instead. Jack rushes away with a blast of cold air and a flurry of tiny snowflakes.
And that's that.
Pitch stands there for a while afterwards, watching the tunnels and feeling the air grow warm. He feels lighter, yet hollowed out.
"It certainly has been...interesting." He says to the air. Jack had at least made the past few decades less boring. The memories would be pleasant and he wouldn't have to see that pain in Jack's smile anymore.
It was enough, knowing that that pain existed in someone else without having it right in front of him.
"Farewell, Jack Frost." He says quietly, turning back to the shadows and ignoring the yellow brimstone eyes watching him from the darkness.
This is for the best.
An hour later and he's wandering the shadows aimlessly, firmly not thinking about anything.
After two hours he feels the same crawling feeling begin to return. It's something like paranoia, the sick twisting in him. It's not as bad as when Jack was here though, so he ignores it.
Three hours since Jack left and it's gotten worse.
It takes four hours for him to start having second thoughts. The air is still and warm and he doesn't recall it ever feeling so thick and oppressive. He's jumping at every sound that echos through the stone arches and wide caverns. Even the clank of the cages as they settle on their chains has him looking up, half expecting to see snowflakes or a shock of white hair.
The place where the box used to rest within his robe burns and Pitch keeps putting his hand there when he's not paying attention. He should have found another way to get Jack to leave. The boy is gone and Pitch doesn't have anything left of him. Even the frost that Jack left on the bridge has melted into a puddle that's rapidly drying.
After five hours Pitch begins pacing. The nervous energy is back, only it's undirected and manic now. He can't stop his fingers from tapping against each other as he walks back and forth around his globe.
In the past he'd had to chase Jack off of the sphere numerous times. The boy never really respected what the globe meant. Though there hadn't been much that Jack respected in general.
There's a flash of yellow and he's pulled from his thoughts when he sees Onyx watching him through the globe, eyes burning.
"Shut up." He growls. She snorts and tosses her head and walks around to butt his shoulder.
Six hours.
He's had enough of skulking about down here. Too long sitting with his own thoughts and oppressive silence. He continues watching the world turn as he runs a hand over Onyx's shoulder.
"Let's ride tonight. It's been far too long since I've accompanied you my dear." He gets another snort at that and smiles slightly as he strokes her nose.
"Go on, I'll meet you up there. And gather the others." He grins, slow and predatory, "We're going to make it a rough night."
She tosses her head, rears and rushes off in a wild scream of writhing shadow. He watches her go with a fond smile and begins heading towards the tunnels.
This is what he needs. A night of doing what he does best, feeling the rush of terror in the air and if they find the right mind to dig into, perhaps it will almost be like the old days.
He pools into the shadows, sliding along the dripping tunnels and smiling at the distant shrieks of the gathering Nightmares.
It will be alright.
Jack may be gone, but Pitch will continue as he always has.
He takes a moment to hiss softly at the bright and full moon when he slides out from under the broken and withered bedframe. His old friend simply shines down, watching as always, the old fool. Pitch is so caught up glaring at him that he almost falls over when he finally turns and-
Jack.
Jack is there.
Jack is perched up on one of the bed posts, staff leaning next to him while he crouches like a gargoyle, elbows on his knees and looking intently at the little box.
Jack is...he's there. He shouldn't be there.
Just like that all the air leaves Pitch's lungs again and he feels like he should say something but Jack is THERE. All his words are tangling over each other and leaving him with his mouth open grasping at something to say.
He had been so sure that Jack would leave after getting his memories that he never prepared himself for any alternative.
"Hey..." Jack says softly, without looking up. "Surprised you're out and about with the Old Man at full blast."
Pitch swallows past the panic welling up in his throat and steps up to stand next to the boy, looking down at the box in his hand.
"Have you..?"
"Yeah." Jack says, and Pitch can see just the edge of a small, tired smile. He suddenly wants to make Jack look up so he can see all of it. From here he can just see the hints of pain and sorrow and joy caught in it and wants to know how the boy can say so much with a smile. He's shaken from his thoughts when Jack continues.
"I had a sister..." His voice is strangely hoarse, with an echo of what could be a laugh hiding under it. "Well, I had the rest of a family too. A mom and everything...but all the best memories were of my sister."
Jack does look up at him then, and Pitch takes back his earlier thoughts about wanting to see that smile. It's quavering and blinding and the light is catching wetness right at the corner of Jacks eyes. Pitch has to look away from that as Jack goes on.
"I saved her!" His voice gets a distant wonder to it, like he's still riding the adrenaline rush from the memory. "That's how...she was so scared and I saved her...I'm glad that was the last thing I did. Though I guess you wouldn't really get that." Jack laughs at that. "Sorry for making someone less scared."
"You're still here."
Jack doesn't look closed off and hurt like he had before when Pitch asked why he was here. Pitch doesn't quite know what Jack's face means, but it's calm and considering.
"Do you want me to leave?"
That question again. That very dangerous question that Pitch was sure he already answered. Jack says it more surely now. It isn't a quiet, nervous and scared anymore. Now Jack's stare is a challenge.
Pitch meets it, feels like he won't be able to breathe ever again.
"No."
Jack nods, then grins brightly at him. "Alright then. You're stuck with me now!"
Pitch barely manages to stomp down the nearly hysterical laugh he feels building up.
You don't know what you've done. You've doomed us you foolish boy!
Pitch's lungs are on fire and he sucks air deep through his nose, barely managing to keep calm on the surface despite the maelstrom within him.
You should have left while you had the chance. You can't now. I can't let you. Not after this. You can't leave. And it's too late now. Too late for both of us.
He clenches his hands tight behind his back, feeling raw and exposed and like he just sealed his own end.
Jack keeps smiling brilliant and blinding and Pitch can only think...
Mine.