Disclaimer: I own nothing from Rise of the Guardians or related material.

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Summary: Pitch is displeased that everyone in the world appeared to be intent on interrupting his activities for the day.

Genre: Humor

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Something was very wrong, but Pitch found that he wasn't able to pinpoint the source that caused that feeling. The wrongness could be put aside for the time being, as the Nightmare King had much more pressing matters to attend to. Like trying not to break his neck while he was hurtling down one of the accursed rabbit's tunnels. This normally wouldn't have fazed him had the rest of his day not been so far from the norm of what Pitch would normally attribute to an ordinary day.

It had all begun earlier that morning.

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Pitch was highly displeased that his evil scheming in the morning had been disrupted when several natural disasters had occurred nearly simultaneously across the world.

Pitch glanced up unseeingly to the dark ceiling of his home, drawn out of his thoughts as the disasters caused the inhabitants of those places affected to loudly broadcast their fears. While Pitch enjoyed the sudden rush of fear, he couldn't quite enjoy it fully because of the interruption to his scheming that was to take place from 9 am to 10 am exactly.

Pitch turned to a nearby Nightmare with a harassed look on his face, "Really, why can't people have to decency to wait until I'm ready for them to become fearful?"

The Nightmare tossed its head with a snorting sound of indifference.

Pitch scowled darkly at the creature, before turning back to his scheming while at the same time trying to enjoy the abundance of fear he could sense.

The fear died down after awhile, and Pitch was able to fully focus on scheming, when he was again interrupted at 10:30 am. At this point in time he had been really getting into his pity fest that had started immediately after his scheming had wrapped up. Pitch sighed heavily at the new source of fear cropping up. Toothiana was being fearful for some of her little fairy workers. With another heavy, unimpressed sigh, Pitch slipped through a nearby shadow.

When Pitch emerged from the shadows, he took in the scene quietly. Ah, a tornado had come through and partially demolished some homes, and apparently a few Baby Tooth fairies had gotten trapped in the rubble. How tiresome. This was what had dragged him from his bout of feeling sorry for himself? Ignoring Tooth's defensive stance completely, Pitch called on the shadows, and soon five Baby Teeth came tumbling out of the shadows to land on the ground near Tooth, all of the tiny fairies chirping in alarm. As an afterthought, Pitch pulled one teen and his parents, as well as a few children, out from beneath the rubble as well, and dumped them out of the shadows before a rescue dog and his startled handler at the sudden appearance of those they were searching for. Pitch gave the tornado damaged scenery one final look, before he slunk back through a shadow to go finish pitying himself. He missed the look of incredulous surprise on Tooth's face.

That afternoon, once he had finished feeling sorry for himself, Pitch went to pacing around his lair, brooding. He knew that he shouldn't have been surprised that he would be interrupted once again. This time it was a freak blizzard, which Pitch suspected was entirely Jack's fault. Two hikers had inconveniently gotten trapped on the mountainside. Pitch could sense that they were afraid that they wouldn't be able to find shelter before help found them. Pitch made a strangled sound of displeasure in the back of his throat. He should really just let the humans freeze to death for being so rude as to interrupt his brooding. Pitch had only had 15 more minutes to go after all.

Grumbling to himself about irresponsible winter spirits, the Nightmare King stalked off into the surrounding darkness. Really. What had possessed Jack to do such a thing? Pitch supposed it was too much to hope that Jack had changed his mind about joining him. No, it was more likely that Jack hadn't noticed the two hikers. Pitch sighed heavily, hoping the exhalation of air from his person wasn't going to become a habit, as he emerged onto the mountainside near where the hikers were. He was buffeted by a strong cold breeze, and the Nightmare King despaired about getting snow in his hair as he approached a pathetically tiny fire that the two hikers were huddled around. Pitch halted when he realized that the hikers, a young couple, were watching his every move. That was odd. Most adults never saw him, but even the fact that someone could see him didn't please him as much as it should have, because Pitch was still upset that his brooding had been so rudely interrupted.

The young couple immediately fell into a whispered argument as Pitch observed them in silence, trying not to fall over from the gusts of wind. It wouldn't be very scary if he stumbled, and Pitch didn't want to suddenly become comical.

"No people in miles, Barry? Wasn't that what you said?" The female hiker accused her companion, though at the same time she cast a nervous look at Pitch.

Pitch offered a razor thin smile, pleased when the woman leaned up against the other hiker in fear. Barry, the male hiker, apparently didn't find Pitch's smile to be intimidating, but that could have just been because he had turned to the woman to respond to her accusation.

"Hun, no on lives in these mountains. You didn't see any cabins, did you?" Barry finally noticed Pitch's expression, but it didn't seem to bother him as much as it did his companion.

"Don't 'hun' me, you liar. Why is he here then?" The young woman pointed at Pitch, glaring at Barry as if demanding him to explain the tall figure's sudden appearance.

Barry grinned cheerfully as he attempted to console the woman, "Maybe we died, Heather, and he's come to whisk our souls away."

It was the wrong thing to say, as that comment caused the woman, Heather, to thoroughly chew Barry out, and make it clear to him that neither his comment nor his sense of humor was appreciated.

As amusing as Pitch found it to be mistaken for a spirit of the afterlife, he was still irritated that his brooding had been interrupted by this bickering couple. Plus their fear had all but diminished as they had apparently deemed him nonthreatening in comparison to the cold weather. Pitch began to smile wickedly. That would soon be remedied. He was going to get something out of this. Pitch reveled in the shriek of fright Heather gave as shadows began to surround her and Barry, cutting their argument short.

Barry seemed fascinated by the sight, and joked, "This is it, huh?"

"Shut up! What is wrong with you?" Heather nearly screamed in frustration, before she clung to Barry in terror as the shadows enveloped them and took them away, where Pitch had them roll out of the shadows near the cabins at the foot of the mountain. At least the Nightmare King missed the next thing that happened between the couple.

Barry had been silent for a few moments with Heather wrapped in his arms. When Barry realized that the danger was gone, he slowly let go of Heather. He glanced around to confirm that they were somehow safe and near civilization, before turning back to his girlfriend of four years. Barry smiled reassuringly at her, "It looks like we're still alive." A pause, then, "Marry me?"

Hysterical laughter was Heather's first response, before she said yes. However, she made sure to get Barry to promise that hiking wouldn't be a part of their honeymoon.

Three sets of eyes watched the couple kiss and make up. The eyes turned to look at one another.

"I told you that Pitch was acting strange." Tooth stated.

"That's so weird, but, you know, he is usually odd anyway." Jack agreed.

"Let's go talk to North and Sandy. I have an idea." Bunnymund added.

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Pitch finally had no interruptions in the evening, which was a relief and improved his mood substantially. At night, he started to doze off. Doing good deeds rather tired him out.

In retrospect, it hadn't been a good idea to try and get a nap in, because that was when Bunnymund's tunnel opened up beneath Pitch. Tumbling to his death seemed a terrible way to go.

Pitch survived somehow, and ended up in North's home.

Things went downhill from there.

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Pitch woke abruptly, and saw that he was still in his lair. Pitch ran a hand through his hair absently, wearing a frown. What was that? He hadn't actually given himself a nightmare, had he, after dealing with that couple on the mountain? The thought was lost as he turned sharply about after spotting a golden color out of the corner of his eye. The Sandman was floating a few feet away, and Pitch was rather irked when the little man gave him a cheerful wave.

Pitch opted to stare at the other in fascination. "I didn't realize you could create nightmares. Perhaps that arrow of mine that struck you had an effect after all?" Pitch queried sardonically, a bit amused when Sandy puffed up at the very idea. Pitch shook his head and smiled thinly, "You can't really expect me to believe that that wasn't a nightmare. Do you?"

There was a brisk nod from the silent Guardian.

Pitch spluttered indignantly in return, "There is no way that I would have wanted to have a dream where I'd join you Guardians. That is most definitely a nightmare."

Sandy shrugged and waved a hand dismissively, as if to say that he hadn't given Pitch a specific dream, and whatever it had been had been entirely up to Pitch's mind.

This unspoken response caused Pitch to be horrified at his own subconscious and its dastardly betrayal. Why would he want anything to do with the Guardians, after all they had done to him? Pitch left through a nearby shadow, deciding that all he needed to do was go and clear his mind. Maybe he shouldn't have wallowed in despair for so long, because clearly it was something he had done that caused his mind to rebel and think about hanging out with the Guardians. Pitch ignored numerous spikes of fear, as his own predicament was far more important than a volcano exploding and endangering the lives of thousands. Pitch emerged into a forest, debating how best to go about curing himself of the sudden need for company from his enemies, when a voice hailed him from the surrounding trees.

"Hey, Pitch!"

Pitch's lips pursed at the cheerful lilt in Jack's voice. It sounded like the winter spirit was up to something, and that was never good for him.

"Found him Jack?"

"Yep, in all his gloomy glory," Jack responded, leaning on his staff.

Pitch started when North's sleigh flew overhead, and at the sight of Bunnymund leaping up out of the ground. Pitch's stomach dropped. No, his dreams were not going to happen while he was awake. Pitch wouldn't allow it, and he was going to make it difficult for the Guardians to do anything to him.

The Guardians watched in utter surprise as Pitch dropped to the ground with dramatic flair, and eyed them all warily, like he was excepting an imminent attack of some sort.

Jack was puzzled by this behavior. He and the others hadn't even spoken nor done anything yet. Pitch was defiantly acting stranger than normal.

Sandy came floating into the area.

"Ah, Sandy, so you found Pitch. He didn't cause trouble, did he?" North questioned curiously.

Sandy exchanged looks with a now glowering Pitch, before turning to North with a smile and a shake of his head.

Pitch grumbled something incoherent and lay limply on the ground, hoping the Guardians would put him out of his misery.

The volcano disaster, however, drew North and Bunnymund away to help, before anything could be said. This left Sandy, Jack and Tooth to deal with a despairing Pitch.

Pitch completely ignored Jack, Sandy and Tooth, mumbling to himself things along the lines of "there's something wrong with me." What exactly was wrong, Pitch wouldn't elaborate to the nearby Guardians. A snowball to his head cleared the Nightmare King's mind temporarily, and it caused Pitch to forget his troubles for the moment. He set upon Jack in an attempt to strangle the grinning winter spirit as Tooth and Sandy looked on in alarm.

Pitch just really wasn't in the mood to be around cheerful beings.

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Across the country, hundreds of miles away, Heather the hiker was starting to regret her decision of saying yes to marriage.

After their incident with Pitch in the snowy mountains, Barry had been insisting that they get married near a cemetery.

Despite Heather's protests, Barry managed to convince her to agree to it, as long as he allowed her to choose their honeymoon destination. Barry had agreed readily, and the couple got married a few months later near a cemetery on Halloween evening.

Pitch hadn't planned on showing up at all, but he had sensed fear coming off of Heather, and decided to amuse himself that night. Pitch witnessed the proceedings with boredom, making no move until after Heather and Barry kissed. Then he struck.

The sight of Pitch and his Nightmares terrified the guests that could see them, while Barry was absolutely delighted. Heather was horrified that Pitch had shown up after all, as she had been hoping that she had been hallucinating.

Pitch decided that it was the young couple's own fault for choosing Halloween night, when people almost expected something terrifying to come leaping out at them from the shadows. Pitch was a bit frustrated that while Heather was completely afraid of the spectacle, Barry was acting like the Nightmare King was the coolest person he had ever seen.

"This is the best wedding ever." Barry stated with a boyish grin.

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I am in the mood for typing and editing today apparently. I could have had Jack go help deal with the volcano, I suppose, but I don't think he would have liked the heat.

I'm sure the majority of the chapters for this are going to have Pitch or Jack in them, as I'm the most comfortable with writing them. I doubt I'll use ocs often, but in the case of this chapter, I thought it made it a little more funny.