Icy Shadows

Summary: After visiting Jamie, Jack finds some fearlings attacking someone. He rescues the person only to find out its...a injured teenage Pitch? How did that happen? Jack/Pitch

I'm back to apologizing again aren't I? Sorry I took so long. It wasn't even writer's block that was stopping me this time it was sheere creativty block. I just couldn't get myself into writing mode for ages. But I got there in the end. Not sure if this chapter is really good because of that but I hope you like it all the same ^^;

Chapter 11

"So what colour do you want your room to be?"

The two teenagers were in the living room. Pitch was attempting to get the hang of using his crutches. While having an arm hold was great, keeping his broken arm in that hold whilst trying to move his crutches both at the same time (usually a two arm job) so he could walk with his broken leg proved to be still a difficult task that needed lots and lots of practice.

At the moment they were the only ones there. North was busy in the workshop and both Bunny and Tooth had to go back home to make sure everything was still running smoothly. Baby Tooth had gone home with Tooth. Sandy, according to Jack, had gone into one of the guest bedrooms to catch up on some sleep before he had to work tonight.

"Colour of my room?" Pitch asked. He took a step forward, balancing on his crutches. He blew upwards at his fringe, trying to cool the sweat beads off his forehead.

"Were you daydreaming during dinner the other day?" Jack asked, smirking. He was perched on the very edge of one of the armchairs nearest Pitch, leaning forward on his staff as he watched Pitch walk up and down.

Pitch blushed, coughing nervously, "Sort of?"

In truth there had been two things distracting him during that dinner. The first was him being lost in thought; trying to figure out the answer to the question of why his powers had disappeared only to reappear again. Had it truly disappeared when he tried to show North or was it just deeply hidden? If that was the case, then why hadn't he felt it?

Sometimes, in battle, Pitch's powers would hide, waiting for the right moment so he could take his foes by surprise. During this, Pitch never really had to think about holding back his powers. In fact, looking back on it, he would almost say the repression of his powers was almost subconscious.

Subconscious or not, however, he had always felt his powers there, even when they hid from others. Even if his powers had hidden from North, Pitch would have felt them there. The fact that he didn't was deeply unsettling for the nightmare king.

The second reason had been when he had been brought out of his thoughts; he had been trying hard not to stare at Jack for the rest of the evening. Jack had been happily chatting away with the four Guardians and the Yetis that had served them dinner. His blue eyes were sparkling as bright as they always did and as the boy joked with North, Tooth and Sandy, teased Bunny and got teased back in return at the crazy statements that accidentally slipped out the winter spirit mouth (he was still suffering from 'concussion craziness' as he had dubbed it), he had pulled many expressions that were just so cute that Pitch had felt his cheeks heat up for the tenth thousand time.

As you can tell, he had utterly failed at trying not to stare.

"Well if you had been listening, you would have heard North say that once he had given you a full check-up, now you have crutches you can move out of the ward and into your own room. He wanted to know what colour you wanted your room to be."

Pitch stopped walking. He had completely forgotten about Jack showing him the guest rooms and North saying that he could stay at the Santoff Claussen for as long as he liked.

"I…I'm not really sure." Pitch replied finally, reassuming practise with his crutches again.

"Well, what was the colour of your room back at your place?"

"Grey. Well, I didn't really have a room, if I'm totally honest." Pitch scrunched up his face, "My lair was….well it was designed to represent fear. Back when I created it, I wasn't really interested in making it a home, rather just making it scary. I only added a bed and a few other belongings in one of the caves at the back of the lair as an afterthought. I'm pretty sure the fearlings destroyed it all anyway."

He felt his expression darkened at the all the bad memories that swirled up inside and tried to squish them all back down. He felt the grip on his crutches tightened, so much so his hands hurt.

"Just-Just tell North to paint it however the hell he wants." Pitch said quickly.

He loosened his grip and tried to just concentrate on walking, focusing solely on his feet. He didn't look at Jack, not wanting the other teen to see the painful expression flashing across his face.

He felt Jack watching him, unusually silent. The only sound was the clunks of the crutches as they met the wooden floor.

"I never had a room either before I became Guardian."

Pitch looked up as Jack broke the quietness, seeing an unreadable expression on the white haired teenager's face.

"I usually slept in the trees near the lake in Burgess. Or when it was too warm, I would move around place to place. There was this one time I slept in the attic of this abandoned house but I honestly didn't like it. It was dark and really, really small. And while I didn't mind the rats, when they kept jumping down from the ceiling, I decided I much preferred it outside."

"Rats that jumped down from the ceiling?" Pitch asked incredulously.

"They kept using my face as a trampoline, it was very annoying." Jack said, grimacing at the memory.

Pitch stayed quiet for a few second, taking Jack's words in.

"….Is your concussion really getting better?"

Jack gave Pitch a glare, though it soon gave way into a chuckle. "I suppose it does sound bizarre. They were getting it through the drainpipes from the building next door and, like I said, the attic was small, so they didn't exactly have far to jump down. Guess they thought I would make their landing softer than usual."

"Right…." Pitch said, silently mouthing the words 'rats that jumped down from the ceiling' again. Jack just laughed harder.

"When the Guardians offered me a room, it was really strange. I didn't actually accept it at first. But North fixed it up anyway, even when I just used it for a storage room for my ice statues. That's why there's so many in there." Jack said, becoming slightly more subdued. He paused for a moment, "And although I do like the room and I'm not going to tell North this but….I prefer dark blue than light blue."

"Is this your rambling way of telling me that I should be the one to choose what colour my room should be like?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Jack shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck.

The two shared a laugh.

"Hey, how about this? Instead of North painting the room, why don't we give it a try? We could just grab a loud of paint cans and decide on the day."

Pitch thought about it, "I guess that could work." It would allow him time to think about what colours he liked other than grey at least. "Would North mind?"

"Nah, I'm sure he won't. He probably be thrilled, he likes creativity remember?"

"Oh yeah, centre of wonder," Pitch said, rolling his eyes.

Jack responded to Pitch's eyes rolling with a grin.

"Ow!"

Pitch suddenly staggered. Apparently he hadn't being paying attention to his leg and, tired of constantly walking, it gave out on him.

He almost fell to the ground when he was rescued by Jack jumping off the chair and grabbing Pitch before he hit the floor.

"Whoa, you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine." Pitch said shakily, out of shock more than anything, "Think I need to take a break though."

Jack led him to the sofa and helped him sit down, taking the crutches from him and placing them to the side, "You shouldn't overdo it you know?"

"Yeah, I know. I just don't like being an invalid."

"I'm pretty sure no one does" Jack teased.

Pitch snorted, Jack did have a point.

He still couldn't help but fiddle uncomfortably with the cast on his arm. He knew both his arm and leg were much better than they were when they first got broke and they were definitely much better after he had to run on that broken leg and use his broken arm when fleeing from his fearlings. He knew he didn't have that long until the casts could come off.

But he couldn't help but wish they would come off quicker. It was a little tiring having them getting in the way all the time.

Besides being injured only cause problems. Even before the fearlings turned on him, Pitch was all too aware of that.

"Pitch,"

Pitch looked away from his arm to find Jack crouched down in front of him so that they were eye level.

"I know it sucks okay? The fact that my head still thuds every couples of minutes and my hand sometimes still hurt makes me all too aware of that."

Pitch glanced away. He forgot Jack's hand got broken not that long ago.

Jack reached and turned Pitch's chin so he was looking at him, causing Pitch's eyes to widened in surprise.

"Just….try not to think about it as much." Jack said, "I don't. I usually ignore my injuries up to the point where Tooth and Bunny end up yelling at me for not taking caring of myself better. But so long as I remember to check up on them once in a while, I usually find if I don't dwell on them so much they heal much faster than they do when I'm constantly getting annoyed by them."

"I-It's not as easy as it sounds." Pitch said. He was all too aware that he was blushing at how close the two were right now.

"I know. But if you keep dwelling on it, you going to end up pushing yourself too hard like you just did now. And do too much of that, you end up making yourself completely worse."

"You know you're a lot wiser than you make out." Pitch commented idly.

Jack grinned, "Don't tell anyone. Especially not Bunny. If he finds out that I'm smarter than I let on, he'll complain about my lack of responsibility yet again."

The two laughed together. As Jack rubbed the back of his neck, Pitch found himself slowly drawn to Jack's lips.

He bit his own trying to qwell down the urge to kiss them. They were so close though….

The door burst opened and Phil and some of the Yetis walked in, planning to clean the living room while their boss was still working.

As Jack turned his head away, Pitch scolded himself. He said he wasn't ready to tell Jack about his feelings yet. Why was the urge to kiss him stronger though?

"So how he's doing doc?"

North finished checking up on Pitch's stiches, allowing the grey teen to pulled down his jacket. He turned to Jack who was perched on the hospital bed next to them. Normally North would have asked Jack to leave when he was doing a check-up but Pitch had asked if Jack could stay before he could figure out a way to politely dismissed Jack.

"Well, he should not have pushed himself earlier," North commented.

"Oy, how many times do I have to apologise for that?" Pitch groaned.

Jack grinned and North let out a loud chuckle.

"But wounds have closed up nicely and mostly all bruises are gone too." The Russian said. Phil stepped over to North, passing him some x-rays. North took a look of them, "And you're bones are healing nicely too. Won't be long before they get healed."

"See. I told you injuries heal when you're not constantly trying to force them to heal." Jack said, sticking out his tongue at Pitch.

Pitch stuck his tongue out in return.

When North blinked in surprise at the sudden childish behaviour from the nightmare king, he quickly shut his mouth, embarrassed slightly.

But North just laughed, Jack joining in.

"Hey North? We were wondering…"

Jack trailed off, tapping the base of his staff for a few moments. He shot a glance over at Pitch.

Pitch suddenly recognised that look. Jack was nervous, and was silently asking for support. Pitch had only seen Jack a couple of times. The fact that the winter spirit was looking at him for support caused a burst of warmth to fill his chest. Slowly, he gave Jack a nod of encouragement.

Jack smiled back shyly, regaining his confidence a little bit, as he turned back to North, coughing slightly, "So…about setting up Pitch's room….could we do the painting? Pitch was having trouble deciding on a colour earlier and I thought it might be fun...er that's if you don't mind us painting."

North fell silence, seeming to take a few minutes to progress what Jack said in.

"Um…North?" Pitch asked, sharing a slightly anxious glance with Jack.

"That is a splendid idea!" North bellowed in joy.

Pitch jumped at the sudden outburst. Jack, who was more used to however perked up excitedly.

"Really?"

"Of course! Will bring paint right in away!"

And with that, the Russian rushed out the room.

"Well that was easy." Pitch commented.

"Yeah." Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck, flushing in embarrassment, "I kind of thought he would say no. Or be disappointed or something."

"You said he would be thrilled earlier," Pitch couldn't help but bring up.

"I know. And I knew he would. But, I guess I was slightly worried." Jack replied softly, his expression turning thoughtful. He then shrugged, "North's kind of unpredictable at times."

"I thought I was the only one to think that."

Jack laughed.

Just then North came back, carrying an arm full of large paint cans, which he dropped down on to the floor. A few moments later almost every elf that lived in North's workshop piled in, also carrying as many paint cans as they could (which was only one or two but to them was quite a lot).

"Um, North…." Jack asked, "How many paint cans did you get?"

"Almost every colour in the rainbow," North replied merrily, "Be back in a moment."

He whistled and all the elves followed him out the room.

Pitch and Jack stared at the large pile of cans before turning to one another.

"When I said he would be thrilled, I didn't quite expect this thrilled." Jack said.

"How much paint does the guy own?" Pitch asked, incredulously.

"I have no idea."

They fell into the silence, both of them still blinking in shock at the large pile of technicolour cans

"I think we should perhaps narrow the paint down a little." Pitch eventually spoke.

Just then North and the elves came back, dumping even more cans into the ward.

"Be back with more!" North said hurrying out once more.

"I think we should." Jack replied.

It took them the rest of the day to go through all the different colours of paint, trying to narrow it all down so that they were at least able to carry them to the guest rooms upstairs. Eventually though they managed it.

"Okay, so we've reduced it down to all the blues paints, all the purples, a couple of the really dark oranges paints and one can of silver paint." Pitch ran through the imaginary check list as he looked down at the remaining cans.

They were sitting in what would be Pitch's new room. It was one fo the guest rooms that was not too small but not to big, just to Pitch's liking.

It was also next door to Jack's room. Which might have been the main reason Pitch chose the room, not that he would admit that aloud or to his annoying brain.

Jack was sitting cross legged on the floor which North had kindly covered with a large canvas so they wouldn't accidentally ruin the floor whilst painting. Pitch was back in his wheelchair. The two had discussed it and decided it would be easily for Pitch to paint if he wasn't holding his crutches all the time.

"You know silver is pretty similar to grey." Jack said as he picked up said tin.

"No it's not."

"Oh really?" Jack teased. "And what's the difference?"

Pitch paused. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think about what was the difference between silver and grey, "Well, er, silver's….shinier." It was the only difference he could think of.

"You've got me there."

"Still you may have a point. Silver is a little like grey." Pitch sighed as Jack tossed him the silver paint can.

"Maybe we could just use the silver on the borders or something." Jack suggested.

Pitch hummed in agreement, putting the silver can to one side in case they wanted for later.

He then went back to looking at the paints. He picked up a lilac colour before he put it down. He then picked up a dark orange colour before placing that down too. He groaned.

"I still can't decide what colour I want my room to be." Pitch moaned, placing his forehead in his hand.

Jack laughed. Pitch shot him a glare, although he admitted silently to himself that it was half-hearted, "It's not funny. Or do you not remember how long we've already spent going through paint tins?"

"Hey, North stopped, eventually. It was the elves that kept coming back with more paint."

"Why did you wait until what must have been the tenth thousandth paint can to freeze them, I do not know." Pitch groaned.

Jack giggled, covering his mouth, "I was kinda of curious of how much paint North owned. I think he must have dipped into Bunny's paint rivers at some point."

Pitch shook his head which only caused Jack to laugh even more. Soon Pitch couldn't help but join in.

"But seriously, this is getting kind of stupid now."

"How about eenie meenie miney moe?"

Pitch gave Jack an unimpressed look.

"Hey that's how I solve choosing dilemmas." Jack said, raising his hands in surrender.

Pitch scoffed and rolled his eyes. He didn't want to admit to Jack that he had already silently played the children's game in his head and he still couldn't decide.

"Well, why did you pick these colours anyway?" Jack questioned, curiously.

"I don't know." Pitch said, "I guess kinda picked the darker purples and darker blues because I do prefer darker colours, still."

"And the oranges?" Jack asked picking up one of tin of said colours and glancing them curiously. While Pitch had obious pick the darkest oranges he could find, thanks to the reason he had stated above, they still stood out in an odd bright contrast against the other colours Pitch had chosen.

Pitch's expression grew pensive and he chewed his lip as he thought of a reason.

"I'm not sure really. I suppose they sort of reminded me of streetlights. Seeing as I've always lurk in the shadows and only went out at night they – besides Manny – were the only light sources I ever knew. And lately I rather prefer the light than the dark."

Pitch looked down at the covered floor, tapping the arms of his chair. He could feel Jack's eyes watching him, softened with concern, as he copied Jack's way of of expressing embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. He ignored them, letting out a slow breath.

Somehow Jack always got him to admit the thoughts Pitch usually just kept to himself. In some ways it was slightly uncomfortable, with him showing his vulnerable side so often recently. But at the same time it was a blessing in disguise being allowed for a change to be able to share a part of himself he usually had to hide.

"And I guess I picked the other light colours for the same reason." Pitch return to the conversation quickly, trying to shrug off the sudden awkwardness.

He hesitated as he picked up a very light blue paint. An almost icy shade of blue. Very similar to a certain winter spirit's eyes.

He hurriedly placed that paint to one side, ignoring it. He wasn't ready to share every part of himself yet, it seemed.

"Let's just go with the dark purple." Pitch said quickly.

"You sure?" Jack asked.

"If you keep questioning my decision, we'll be here all day."

"Purple it is."

They placed the rest of the paint cans outside and got to work. Jack hovered in the air, painting the upper parts of the wall, while Pitch focused on the lower parts as much as he could reach.

Pitch soon figured out it was best not to directly paint under Jack. Jack, seeming to have no idea what he was doing, swept the brush very messily across the wall, dunking his brush into the paint can so much half the paint ended up flying across the room. Pitch had to ducked and dodged every so often to avoid getting splattered. In the middle of painting, Jack disappeared from the room and came back with an old radio. He switched onto the music station and sang along with it as he painting.

After a while the white haired spirit, notice Pitch staring at with a grin, "What?"

"I didn't know how badly out of tune you were." Pitch smirked.

"Oy!" Jack cried, indignant. He swooped down, pointing his brush at Pitch in mock outrage, "You take that back!"

"Hrm," Pitch hummed slowly, as if in consideration, "No."

Jack poked him with his paintbrush. He had forgotten there were still paint on it, which ended up on Pitch's nose.

"Hey!" Pitch shouted, now the indignant one.

Jack doubled up laughing, "You look like Rudolph – except with a purple nose instead of red! Pitch the purple-nosed rein-hey!"

Pitch interrupted Jack by giving him a purple beard with his own paintbrush.

"And now you look like North." Pitch said, grinning proudly.

"Are you asking for a paint war?" Jack smirked, trying to imitate North's voice.

"You don't even sound Russian!" Pitch laughed, just before Jack gave him purple streaks in his black spikes.

The two soon forgot about painting the walls as they attacked each other with the paints instead, chasing each other around the room, laughing as they did so. Soon they stopped for breath, still giggling weakly as they panted. Jack leaned against Pitch's chair, bent slightly with his hands in his knees as he fought the stitch that was building in his chest. He looked up at Pitch and chuckled, blue eyes shining. They were both face level.

It happened without even a thought. Pitch didn't even remember leaning in. All he knew now was that his lips were pressed against Jack's own ones, forgetting about the messy painted room around them.

It felt so strange and surreal and yet so wonderful at the same time. It was even better than the kiss he had in his dream.

His dream.

Suddenly realising what he was doing Pitch pulled back, stumbling a little in his chair. Jack's eyes was wide, mouth jutting open in shock.

Pitch's dream flashed into his head, reminding him of what had happened when he had kissed Jack in his dream. How Jack had quickly gone to hating him. And now that was going to become reality.

"I'm sorry!"

As quickly as he could, he hurried out the room, slamming the door shut behind him and leaving a very confused and shocked Jack to lift his hand to his lips and wonder what had just happened.

Me: YES THEY KISSED THEY KISSED THEY KISSED!

Jack: Um you do just realise Pitch just ran away

Me: What? Holy-Pitch you get back here! *chases after Pitch*

Hoped you enjoy. Oh free cookies for anyone who knows where the rats from the ceilings came from. Note, in the source material they weren't rats but they are closely related. XD