Work Text:
“I should’ve been there sooner! None of this would’ve—.”
“Stop, Tooth.” Bunny took the fairy’s hand. “Blaming yourself isn’t going to make this any easier.”
The two hugged, Tooth’s eyes still tearing up as they turned to look through the cracked open door of one of North’s spare bedrooms. There, on the bed, lay Jack Frost. The winter spirit was unconscious, his body bruised, torn, and broken. They’d had to remove his hoodie and toss it to the side. To say it had been shredded wouldn’t have been too far from the truth. It lay in tatters next to his broken staff.
Jack and Tooth had agreed to investigate some mysterious activity in India, which the Guardians had talked about at a meeting that Jack had had to miss. Once he was free from his ‘hiatus,’ he thought looking into the complaints North had mentioned would be a good idea. Tooth agreed to meet him. When she’d arrived, however, Jack was nowhere to be found. She had known he would be punctual. Heck, she was surprised at how often the perpetual teen was on time or early for meetings. So she scoured the area with some of her fairies, sure that he couldn’t be too far. She hadn’t been too worried. Maybe he’d found a game to play. That was just like Jack.
When she found him, though, she hadn’t even recognized him. He had been beaten so severely that she didn’t think it were possible for him to survive. But still he breathed. She was at least grateful for that. She’d gotten Bunny’s help to get him to North’s shop, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to protect him on her own. Surely whatever had attacked him was still around.
Now they watched, waiting for the youngest Guardian to awaken. He still hadn’t, and Bunny was starting to look about as anxious as Tooth felt. How could she have let this happen to him? Even though Bunny had told her not to feel guilty, she couldn’t help it. Her guilt and unanswered questions only made things worse. Jack wasn’t easily overwhelmed. He was a strong fighter and they all knew that. The only thing capable of doing such damage the Guardians had encountered recently was Jack’s significant other. Surely Pitch wasn’t foolish enough to try something like this. Tooth locked eyes with Bunny again, and she could almost see the fury in his eyes. He was thinking the same thing. Somehow, she knew he was suspicious of their old foe.
When their attention turned back to the room, a sudden surge of darkness caught their attention. The lights seemed dimmer, and something black hovered over Jack. It was an amorphous figure, indistinguishable and not entirely human yet, but Bunny and Tooth knew who it was and moved into the room anyways. Bunny pulled a boomerang from its holster, bracing himself. Tooth felt her feathers ruffle at the very presence of the Nightmare King.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Pitch,” Bunny snarled. “Leave.”
“Who did this?” His voice filled the room, echoing and sending shivers through them. The voice was monotone. It was low and surprisingly devoid of emotion. But when he manifested before them, creating a formidable barrier between them and the helpless boy on the bed, Tooth and Bunny shrank away. Pitch’s eyes seemed to be nothing by amber flames set in a serious, ashen, almost coal-black face. The whole of his body was rigid, the shadows made him appear even taller than he really was, and the only part of his body they could see moving were his hands, fingers twitching as if longing for a throat the squeeze. In fact, Tooth was fairly sure that was what Pitch was thinking.
“We don’t know, and our only suspect is right in front of us,” Bunny antagonized, unwilling to cower before the Nightmare King.
Tooth could see that Bunny regretted his words as soon as he said them, though. Before either Guardian could speak again, shadows surged throughout the room, slamming shut the door and windows and drowning out the light as Pitch leaned forward and downward, making a show of how he had to work to meet them at eye level. “I want to know who did this, and I want to know now.” His fangs flashed, his voice unwavering.
“Threatening the only people who found him isn’t the best way to go, mate.” Bunny’s venom was going to get him killed. The tension in the room thickened and the shadows seemed more alive than ever, and the Guardians became aware of the hissing and snarling coming from the darkness. Pitch’s eyes only grew more molten, and they could see him bare his teeth now.
Tooth positioned herself between the two men, seeing this was going to get them nowhere. “We found nothing. We searched the area, and there wasn’t a single sign of a struggle—.”
“Tooth, what are you—?”
“Let me handle this, Bunny.” She faced the darkness and the glowing eyes and fangs that were all she could see of Pitch now. “Jack is a very capable fighter. Whatever got him must have surprised him and made quick work of him before running. I don’t think they expected anyone to find him, and so left him for dead.”
“You found him like this,” Pitch stated. The first sign of emotion bled into his voice and Tooth knew, almost intuitively, that no matter how suspicious Bunny was of Pitch that the Boogeyman couldn’t have done this to Jack.
“I was supposed to meet him there. If you want someone to blame—.”
“Tooth, don’t—.”
“Bunny, leave.” The Guardian of Hope hesitated. She turned to him, hoping he knew that she was trying to reassure him. It was hard to see in Pitch’s shadows. He obeyed, though. He fumbled for the door for a bit before Pitch retracted his shadows, allowing Bunny to find his way out. The light almost blinded them as he exited the room. Tooth turned back to Pitch once more. “If you want someone to blame, blame me. I could’ve saved him.”
Pitch withdrew his shadows completely, then, returning to his true height and looking about as normal as Pitch Black can. It was then that she saw the emotion in him she had sensed earlier. The pain in his expression was heart wrenching. She had never once put serious thought into the human expression ‘sympathize with the devil.’ Now, she did. He appeared drained from his display of power, but most of all he appeared in agony. His hands still twitched, but his head hung low. He almost looked broken. She’d only seen him like this once, and that was when he’d been so severely defeated by the Guardians that he’d been dragged back to his lair by his own creations. He interrupted her thoughts when he said, “You aren’t the only one responsible for him.”
His voice sounded just as broken as he appeared. He turned away, gazing down at Jack. The boy still lay unconscious, completely unaware of what had just transpired. Tooth felt a pain in her own chest as she watched Pitch kneel by the bed and gently take Jack’s face into his hands. Pitch stared down at Jack like he was the most precious thing in the world to him, and that tore Tooth apart. It further ensured that there was no way Pitch had anything to do with the attack.
Pitch closed his eyes, touching his forehead to Jack’s for a brief moment. Then he started to survey the damage. He looked as if he were searching for something.
“Do you want to see what we did find?” Tooth asked.
“In a minute,” Pitch answered so softly, it was almost inaudible. He was touching Jack’s wrist, focusing on the arm that wasn’t currently in a sling. “He panicked.”
“What?” Tooth watched as Pitch examined the other wrist, careful not to disturb the sling.
“He panicked. They held him down, and he panicked.” By the end of the sentence, he was speaking through gritted teeth. He motioned for her to come closer and see what he was seeing. She hesitated, but obeyed. He gestured to the deep purple bruises on his wrists. His fingers were twitching wildly. “Somehow they figured out that restraining him by his wrists would render him defenseless.”
“Wouldn’t that make just about anyone defenseless?”
“Yes, but not quite like this.” Tooth watched as Pitch ran his hand through Jack’s white hair, his sadness deepening. The movement was so tender that she actually had to remind herself that she was conversing with the Nightmare King, her enemy. She was sitting beside him discussing what had happened to her fellow Guardian. This experience was altogether surreal. Then he said, “You were right. They surprised him.”
“How do you know?”
“No sign of a struggle, you said. Jack is more observant than we take him for. He would’ve seen his assailant coming and retaliated. They must have caught him when he was most vulnerable—.”
“He was asleep—.”
“Precisely! They grabbed his wrists and then . . .,” he couldn’t finish. The agony in his expression increased tenfold. Tooth watched as he cradled Jack’s face in his hands once more and squeezed his eyes shut, as if willing the boy to wake up and look at him. He shook his head. “You just don’t listen . . .,” his voice trailed off again and she knew he was talking to Jack.
Tooth felt uncomfortable. Seeing Pitch like this was beyond comprehension. It defied logic. How could he have grown so attached to Jack is so short a time. A couple of months were nothing to immortals. The fact that Pitch cared this deeply about a winter spirit who’d once helped defeat him . . . even Tooth couldn’t fathom this. She felt the need to redirect his attention somehow, but the only thing she could come up with was to talk more about Jack. “Why would he panic more about someone grabbing his wrists?”
Pitch sighed, not looking at her at first. “He has a phobia of restraint.” He glared at her then. “You think I’m not aware of what he fears?”
“I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t. If anything, I’m the one who doesn’t know,” she reasoned.
He seemed to accept that. In one fluid motion, he stood. She followed suit, noting the subtle changes in his posture from tense to an almost feigned relaxed. His face was devoid of emotion now, but in a way that made Tooth think he was trying too hard to hide his feelings and seem calm. “What else is there to see?” She flew to Jack’s torn hoodie and broken staff, bringing the items back to Pitch to investigate. The sadness in his eyes returned, but she saw him brush the feeling aside as quickly as it had appeared. He looked at the pieces of the staff first, like it reminded him of something painful from the past. He handed them back to her, examining the tattered hoodie more carefully. “They didn’t have claws. They had to work to tear this.”
“Knives?”
“You would see knife marks on him if they used them.” He looked at Jack’s wounds again, then back down at the blue fabric. She could almost hear his brain at work. “As it stands, they just used their bare hands and nails. No other weapons. No talons.”
He turned the fabric over in his hands, and it was then that she spotted something she hadn’t seen before. Reaching for it, she landed, feeling her body begin to freeze out of shock as her feet touched the ground. “No . . . .” She couldn’t believe it. She pulled from the ruined sweatshirt the smallest clump of reddish hair, staring at it in recognition.
Pitch dropped the hoodie, glaring down at what she had found. “I thought you had eradicated them.”
“So did I,” Tooth whispered, not sure if she believed what she was seeing, touching with her own fingers. “This isn’t possible.”
“My return was supposedly impossible as well,” he remarked.
She looked up at him, knowing he was right. “I have to take care of this.”
“No offense, twit, but you are not the warrior you once were. Years of passivity have weakened you, and you cannot fight them alone.”
“And you can?” They glared at each other. She knew his expression was fiercer than hers, but still she returned the look.
“I intend to.”
“What do you expect me to do while you avenge one of my own?” Her tone was searing, but Pitch paid no heed to the acerbity that Bunny would’ve been proud of had he heard it.
“I expect you to do your job, just as I will do mine.” Pitch turned to look at Jack one last time. “You’re a Guardian. Guard him.”
Tooth watched him run his hand through Jack’s hair again. As Pitch prepared to depart into the shadows, she said, “Wait. One thing.” He waited, but didn’t look at her. “Bring me evidence that you finished them.”
He didn’t respond. She blinked, and the room was empty of the Nightmare King once more.
Tracking down monkeys was easy. Tracking humans was even easier. They were practically everywhere. One would think that tracking down a human-monkey hybrid would prove even simpler, but alas it was not. And Pitch had sent out his entire army of Nightmares and shadows in search of the abominations who had dared touch what belonged to him.
It took only a few days of searching. However, those days felt like an eternity to him. Nights had never passed so slowly for Pitch before. The entire time, he sat still on his throne, a throne he rarely ever utilized. It felt useless to sit on it, and he only had it for appearance purposes. Once he had caught Jack resting on it, his long, pale legs thrown over the arms of the metal monstrosity.
The very thought of Jack would bring Pitch’s rage back to its highest boiling point, and he wondered how long he’d have to wait for his creations to bring the damned fiends to him. His patience wore thin entirely too easily when he was livid. His fingers twitched, he glared about the lair, but otherwise he did not move. He couldn’t. Moving would mean facing the emptiness of his home, the complete and total lack of . . . Jack. How lonely it was now that he didn’t have his winter spirit to look forward to seeing. Pitch would visit him, he longed to, but couldn’t bear to go near the boy until he’d punished those who’d laid hands on him. Pitch had a job to do, and he was going to savor the chance to lay into the beasts who’d hurt his Jack.
When the creatures were finally captured, there were a mere two. Two monkey men had caught a Guardian by surprise and severely injured him. It still struck him as a little too convenient that they’d discovered Jack had a fear of being held down by the wrists. This smelt of something more sinister than just a small-scale ambush to Pitch.
He finally stood as his Nightmares disposed of the two in one of the larger cages hanging from the ceiling. Pitch disappeared into the shadows, watching the creatures squirm. He smiled, seeing that his creations had not been gentle with the atrocities. A blend of rage and pleasure writhed within him as it registered in his mind that he had Jack’s attackers in his grasp. His hands shook, his spine went rigid, and his face twisted in ways he could not control. The most he could do was clench his fists and remain a part of the shadows.
“Are you beasts even capable of speech?” His voice resonated throughout the lair, low and calm. Calmer than he felt. The things slammed their fists against the cage’s walls, howling. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“We speak!” one shouted.
“Ah, good. That’ll prolong your life for now.” Pitch threw his voice to the other side of the room, relishing in the fear that seeped from the two half men. “It has been many, many years since I’ve worked with you. Do refresh my memory; is your Monkey King dead?” He had been certain that the twit had taken care of that particular piece of filth. The Monkey King had caused the death of her family and rendered her the last of her kind, after all. That was back when she was a daunting foe. Now she hid behind and army of her miniature selves.
“Many years dead,” the same beast answered. He and the other cowered in the cage, facing each other with their backs against the bars. Such delicious fear.
Pitch never grew tired of how delectable fear could be, but he wanted more than fear from these creatures. “That is a relief. I was beginning the think the Guardians had always been completely incompetent and remiss in their duties.” Pitch and his shadows circled the cage, eliciting more yowls from the things. “Tell me, do you have a new leader?”
“We know not his name!” the other finally spoke, but he answered too quickly. Pitch allowed them to catch sight of his face then. He greeted them with a grin and flaming eyes, which sent the two crashing away from him, their backs hitting the cage’s bars with a CLACK. Their screams made Pitch’s grin widened as he commanded the shadows to pin and secure them to the bars while he entered the cage himself.
“I was hoping you would say something like that.” His back was straight as he allowed himself to appear taller. His hands were balled into fists as he kept his body tense but not noticeably so. Now, the grin faded from his face and his eyes burned into them. He knew he looked every bit as terrifying as he had when confronting the twit and the rabbit, his shadows flaring at his sides. The two animals shook, whimpering and utterly pathetic. The fact that such pathetic things had managed to harm a single hair on the youngest Guardian’s head only served to fuel the rage coiling within Pitch Black. “Here is the deal. Had you laid a hand on any other Guardian, I wouldn’t have blinked. I likely would’ve encouraged your actions.” Pitch reached into his robes, pulling out a set of pliers. “But see, you have injured the one I have grown rather fond of. And I’m afraid neither of you will leave this lair alive, but the journey to death can be made quick and easy should you choose to cooperate.” Pitch nodded his head, commanding another set of shadows to pry open the creatures’ mouths. He turned the pliers about in his hand, making sure they were strong enough for what he was about to do. “Dearest Jack has taught me the importance of having fun. And we’re going to have a little fun now. The first to tell me what I need to know will be killed swiftly. No catch. No additional pain. If all you intend to do is scream and suffer, which would be ill-advised but I will oblige you nonetheless, I will be forced to make your death as slow and painful as I know how.” He raised the pliers, stepping forward. “Let’s start with you.”
Bunny and Tooth sat outside Jack’s door. He still hadn’t woken up. The Guardians weren’t entirely sure that he would. Bunny hadn’t slept, and he knew Tooth hadn’t either. He wasn’t sure Tooth had left her post outside Jack’s room since Pitch had shown his face. North had kept busy. It was the only thing the Guardian of Wonder could do to keep from showing just how deep his concern ran. Sandy visited, sprinkling dream sand over Jack’s eyes in hopes that at least he could ease the boy’s mind. Jack never reacted. No golden shapes appeared above his unconscious body. This, more than anything, worried the Guardians.
When he had been sure no one was looking, Bunny had snuck into the room and held Jack’s hand. He prayed the boy could hear him talk to him. He told him how everyone was doing. He told him how much they all missed him. He told him about Sophie and Jamie, both of whom asked about him. He told him what Pitch was up to, though he loathed doing so. Somehow he figured he could endure relaying messages about the Boogeyman if it meant Jack could hear him.
He never told Jack how much he missed him though.
Bunny’s thoughts were disturbed when a shadow loomed over him and Tooth. He braced himself at the sight of Pitch, then forced his body to relax. The Nightmare King ignored him completely as he looked at Tooth. She flew up to meet him at eye level as he handed her a black leather pouch.
“Your evidence,” the Boogeyman muttered. His face and voice was completely devoid of emotion. He seemed weary to Bunny.
Tooth opened the pouch and reached in. Bunny fought back bile as he watched her pull out a handful of bloody adult teeth with gums still stuck to them. They obviously weren’t human teeth, but nor were they completely monkey. While Bunny felt ill, unwilling to ask how Pitch had gone about acquiring the teeth, Tooth didn’t so much as flinch. Her face hardened at the sight, and her eyes burned in such a way that reminded Bunny of old battles from centuries before. Back when the Guardians were first getting started and they had actually seen what war amongst the immortals could really be like. Semi-secure times such as these had not completely rid the Guardians of those memories, but they had not completely softened them either. Right now, Bunny was looking at the old Toothiana, the one who once wielded twin swords and waged war against those who bore ill will towards her and her charges.
“Sixty-four?” she asked Pitch, dropping the teeth back into the pouch. The Nightmare King nodded. She nodded in return, acknowledging what he’d done. Then she maneuvered out of his way, allowing him to enter the room.
Bunny wanted to protest, but didn’t. He just watched as Pitch walked slowly towards the bed. Bunny then watched as Pitch knelt on the ground and took Jack’s hand into both of his. The Guardian of Hope couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He couldn’t believe he was bearing witness to the Nightmare King pressing Jack’s hand to his gray cheek while smoothing out the lines on Jack’s forehead with his thumb. He felt like he was intruding on something private even though he was watching his enemy press a kiss into the palm of his comatose companion. This should infuriate the rabbit. Instead, for the first time, he felt okay. He wasn’t glad. He wasn’t relieved. He was simply content. Even though it was evidence of a finished job he’d brought Tooth, this evidence was far more important to Bunny: Jack was safe with the Boogeyman.
Tooth touched Bunny’s shoulder, indicating that they should go. He nodded without hesitation. When Jack woke up, if he woke up, he would be in the presence of someone who would take care of him. That was all that mattered to Bunny. It no longer mattered who that someone was.