Work Text:
There is a small puddle of blood in front of his face. He doesn’t remember a fight, but his head aches from the wound. He tries to move onto his side to get up, but his arms are heavy and lethargic. After several blind attempts, he finally manages to scrape himself off the rock. Dizziness overtakes him, and he stumbles in search of a crutch. His hand lands upon cool white stone. Spreading along it, his fingers scuff the surface with frost as he tries to calibrate. The room is dark, a few scant strands of light seeping in from the surface.
How had he gotten to Pitch’s?
Why had they fought?
Wasn’t Pitch locked away?
Calming himself, he leans into the stone slab, back slouching weakly against it as he allows himself a moment of weakness. He feels at his forehead for the wound, but his hair is too matted with blood to tell. The pain halts his search, so he wipes the blood from his face as best he can. He shouldn’t be able to bleed; shouldn’t remember what blood looks like.
“Starting to piece it together?”
He can’t defend himself. His staff has disappeared, he can’t see it, can’t sense it—
He growls,
“Pitch.”
“There we are. Enjoying your dream, Jack?”
Hunching at the stone, he tries to assume a defensive stance, but a new wave of pain hits him so hard he nearly groans, face numb from the throb. Pitch’s trim black boots come into view, and he looks up with all the hatred he can muster.
“Get out of here, Pitch.” He tries to growl again, but through the pain can barely manage a hoarse whisper. His fingers itch for his staff, but Pitch only walks closer, jagged smile taunting and sharp.
“Technically speaking, we’re in my home. I think I’ll make myself comfortable.”
He snaps his fingers for dramatic effect and flops down into a stiff armchair, crossing his legs and looking oh-so content in the presence of Jack’s suffering. Jack, meanwhile preparing a witty retort, is blindsided by a hellish flood of torment. Gripping his head with an agonized gasp, he folds in on himself, collapsing half-onto the stone block, hands twitching for something to hold; for focus.
Grey fingers lightly caress his flesh, and he grips them as his vision whitens through the pain. Pitch holds him with both hands, looming over him and blocking a stream of light. He pets Jack’s sweating flesh in a careful, soothing manner, and speaks softly,
“Do you know what this is?”
Jack glares at him before another throb contorts his body. He shudders as the words form,
“Y-your cave.”
Pitch watches over him fondly, moving to stroke back the knotted hair as Jack winces, writhing through sobbing breaths. His hand strokes Jack’s cheek and he leans in with a sniff. He’s drinking in the pain.
“This,” he says with a happy sigh, “is the nightmare realm. And this,” he moves his fingers reverently over the ragged wound, cooing over and stifling Jack, “this is your nightmare. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
Jack twists as Pitch holds him down. Slender fingers tug at something in him, and Pitch’s laughter washes over him like acid. His temper flares and he struggles, but his head strikes back against the stone, a firm palm keeping him there. He can barely glance past the flesh bearing down on him, but a black silhouette begins moving freely above him, swirling in the air as Pitch worships it, hardly straining to keep him contained.
“Oh, you are gorgeous, aren’t you? What can you tell me?”
It’s his nightmare.
Pitch is talking to his nightmare.
The thing gathers energy as it siphons off his head. Fuelled by a new source of rage, Jack rips out of Pitch’s hold and scrambles up the stone, nearing the middle when he’s forced down again. This time, he can see Pitch clearly. His expression is condescending, but curious. He’s livid with the world as always; eager to participate in its agony. Jack is his only outlet.
“The other guardians have an excellent weapon against me. Do you know what it is?” That same awed stare. Pitch is thrilled that he’s caught him. Jack gasps out defiantly, voice tight,
“Your hubris?”
Pitch smiles.
“They don’t sleep, Jack.”
Shadows begin turning in his periphery, creeping up onto the slab with lashes of black tendrils. Pitch stills him easily as he wriggles in terror, locking his limbs in place. They climb over his body as he lets out a weak, shaky yell, feeling quartered as they draw his arms and legs to the edges of the rock. Within seconds, Pitch steps back, and Jack thrusts his body up against the bonds, withering with an angry sob when they gnaw into his skin. Pitch’s eyes flicker,
“They don’t invite me in. They’re far too busy for the likes of me. Too big to fall, I think we’ve proved.” His smile is grating, and he rakes his gaze over the prone body in front of him, running his fingers along bony hips as the hoodie exposes them through struggle. “I think we’re meant for each other. We both have so much free time, and,” he scratches Jack’s neck, eliciting a twitch, “so few believers. We have to occupy ourselves.”
“If you don’t let me go, I will end you!” Jack chokes out, enraged. Pitch passes him a bored look and continues mapping his body without consent.
“It’s curious. Nightmares form on their own. I have no more control over their development than you do your own dreams. It’s always interesting to see what they grow out of.” Silver eyes flash over him predatorily. “Don’t be afraid, Jack. It’s only a dream.”
With that, he recoils, merging with the darkness and leaving Jack to wrestle with the shadows. They pull a shout from him as they straighten his back, yanking tight enough to break him, bruising his wrists and ankles. He can feel Pitch watching. He had taken to napping. Why hadn’t he told Sandy? Why had he done it in the first place? No one would look for him here. No one would think any time had passed. Pitch had him perfectly, unquestionably, at his mercy.
As this realization dawns at last, Pitch’s face is overcome with bliss. The nightmare takes on a new tone of dread, prickling at the senses with anticipation and fear. Pitch could keep him here for years. He could make him forget the whole thing and do it again and again. Overcome by the horror, Jack is yanked back into the conversation as his collar wrenches him off the stone. Pitch leers beyond his fist. He hisses,
“Much better.”
Jack hits the slab hard after he’s dropped, limbs scrabbling again as the shadows pull back. Pitch lingers around him, indecisive about his form. He blends into the wall of shadow as he paces, disappearing for an entire revolution before wavering in the dim light. If Jack could only conjure something to help him, he could escape. If he could focus enough to wake up, he could warn the others. Pitch is alive and mad and he’s got a personal vendetta against the Guardian of Fun. For all his efforts, the pain only intensifies, and Pitch slips him a pitying glance.
“Lucid dreaming is out of season, is it not? Now that you have me to keep watch at night. I’ll take care of you, Jack.” Hands slink out of the darkness and grip his head. Pitch’s smug face appears above him, willing him to look. “We’ll make such a happy family.” Wanting to tell him off, Jack tries to breathe, but a black tendril whips its way across his mouth. He bites into it savagely, panic splintering his conscious. Pitch’s hands remain at his head, that same curious expression leading Jack to wonder through the terror if this is more an experiment than just subjugation. He’s never been so weak. Pitch has never had a trump card quite so complete. He thrashes for a few more seconds before Pitch closes in, whisper-near to the wound on his head.
“I am going to summon your worst fears. I am going to watch them evolve as they feed from you. And I am going to do this every time you fall asleep, for the rest of your life. And there is nothing. You. Can do about it.” Pitch releases the shadows restraining Jack, only to knock him back down with his own body. He kneels over the stone, gathering two chaffed wrists into one hand, then using the other to crawl along the hem of the weather-beaten hoodie.
“I always hated this on you. You look better without.”
He rips it loose and Jack screams, mouth immediately swallowed by ravenous teeth. He cuts his lip trying to escape, and the clothing fades under Pitch’s ministrations. He can feel the smile as the other pulls away, leaving a nauseating flip in his belly. He couldn’t be planning that.
Pitch’s smile boils over and shimmers with glee,
“Yes, Jackie-boy. I feel it gets the point across fairly efficiently. Wouldn’t you?”
“Pitch! Fight me with some self-respect, you limp-wristed—” Jack starts, but Pitch bites at him again and the breath is sapped out of his body. The cold snaps at his fingertips and pressure begins in his chest. A tongue licks at his mouth and he gasps for air, allowing Pitch access in hope of breathing, but no air comes. Fingers dance at his hip bones and the cold finds his legs, too. He’s naked, writhing, and whimpering into a kiss while Pitch explores his mouth. An unbidden thought pops into his head that it’s only a dream, but it reeks of Pitch’s sarcasm, and he shivers when he thinks Pitch might be controlling him. At that, the other finally pulls away, permitting Jack a gasping breath as he laughs, wholly unaffected by the kiss.
“I can’t direct you, but I can certainly hear you. You may as well speak up,” his tone drops as he leans in to nip at Jack’s neck, “your voice is so much prettier than your thoughts.”
Pitch slides down Jack’s body as the boy clams up. If he has to endure this, then he won’t lend the satisfaction of seeming defenseless. It’s a dream and he can slog through it as he has any other. Begging Pitch for anything, let alone mercy, is not going to happen if he can stop it.
Teeth dig into his thigh and he cries out, sighing sharply as lips follow the wounds apologetically. Pitch stares down at him, crouched between his legs as he kisses at the blood flowing up Jack’s flesh.
“You should focus on what’s in front of you. I’ve missed so much, looking eagerly to the future. I try to enjoy life, now.”
“Is that what we’re saying happened? You got distracted? The Guardians didn’t just whup you so bad, you’re out of the game for good?”
Pitch stares at him heavily, lips just inches from the mark he’d left. He eyes it again, then grants it a gentle, lingering kiss. Jack shivers at the touch, legs falling as Pitch pulls back.
“Before you came into the picture,” he starts, untying the clasp on his robe, “I had this awful idea that I’d always be alone.” He forces his way over Jack’s chest, nuzzling the other’s head to the side as he cranes into cool flesh. “I thought I’d never need a family, no matter how much I wanted one.” He pulls back, and Jack has a second to understand what’s going to happen to him. “I rather think I’m ready for the commitment, don’t you?”
Before Jack can strike at him, he jerks thin hips into his lap, holding with breaking force the wrists in his hand. He dons a growing smirk as he hoists Jack into position, then goes to undo his trousers.
“I had thought to give you a choice. Would you like to be on your back or on your knees?”
Jack gasps out in disbelief, “Go to hell, Pitch!”
“Much as I love the image of you on your knees, I think I want you to see this.”
He pulls himself free with a hum, kissing Jack’s jaw as he lines up along the other’s flaccid member.
“My dear,” he whispers into a pale neck, “you can do better than that.”
With that, he begins stroking him, listening to the fears as they bubble up and playing on them at a slow pace. Jack has plenty of time to anticipate, and effectively suggest each of his next moves. Pitch preys on the deepest fears he can, of course.
He thrusts idly between Jack’s thighs, more to remind Jack than to keep himself going. He flicks the tip of the reddened cock in his hand and accompanies it with a small bite to the neck. Jack groans and twists away, hands still held fast.
“So delicate,”
Jack can feel himself harden against all his interests, cheeks flushing as he thinks to just shut up and finish. If he plays along, it may end sooner.
“It won’t, Jack. Trust me.”
Pitch’s private audience with his innermost thoughts is beginning to take its toll. The more aware of it he becomes, the more frantically he wrestles to clamp down on the ones he’d rather not surface. Pitch, understandably, blasts through his mental block as if it were an art.
“I have too much practice for that. Honesty is the best policy, Jack.”
And there, Jack’s greater fears begin to bob out of hibernation. Mortal fears sequestered by his age and powers. Fears he hadn’t come to terms with in this life or the previous one.
“You’re still so young,” Pitch comments, reaching down to pull Jack’s right leg up. The blood had staunched, but the bite marks remain clear. He watches them for a moment, half-stunned he’s made it this far and positively giddy about it. When he faces Jack again, the smirk is mixed with cruel expectation. Jack is going to suffer. He is going to make sure of it.
“I hear the best strategy for a virgin is to control breathing and try to relax. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As fingers ghost over his entrance, trailing his thigh, Jack breaks down, quivering openly; terrified.
“Pitch, please don’t do this.”
His sobs hitch when the heat of another male’s sex rubs against him, hard and aggressive. Pitch is going to tear him apart before he lets him go. Whenever he lets him go.
He thinks he’s going to get some sort of lofty monologue about good and evil and consequence, sparing him time to reflect on his misfortune and bear it as best he can. But all he gets is a firm hand on his jaw and Pitch looking down on him dangerously. And all he says, for all the time he’d devoted to soliloquies, is
“Look at me.”
And Jack does.
He can see Pitch’s face twitch in ecstasy and slacken as he’s breached, the dark grey head of his cock disappearing between his legs. He screams and his voice is painful and hoarse, shattered by misuse. Fire wracks his abdomen and his arms jerk to life, tugging desperately at his wrists, legs bunched up with Pitch settling between them. He sniffles, jolting when the weight finally stops pressing, and he realizes that Pitch is inside him. He’s being fucked on his back, legs in the air. He’s being raped. Pitch is raping him.
The horror that flourishes in him at that moment causes Pitch’s eyelids to flutter. He moans, hips twitching as he starts to thrust. Jack whines in pain with each roll against his body, shutting his eyes tight and straining his neck back to batten down his reactions.
Relax, no, that’s what he said to do, it hurts, please, someone, help me, just close your eyes and pretend you’re somewhere else, Oh, God, please, Manny, help me, it hurts so much, please, make it stop—
“AH! Ahh…” Jack cries as his head tilts back, legs tight around Pitch’s hips, trying to push up and away from the cock impaling him. He grits his teeth, nails scraping fruitlessly at the stone under him. Pitch’s breath sears his face. His body rocks against the insistent thrusts. Burrowing more deeply, they search inside of him. His fears fester and grow and Pitch whispers horrors into his ear,
“I’m going to do this to you every night. You won’t remember it until the second you fall asleep. I’m going to fuck you, Jack, and you’re going to love it.”
Jack wrenches away from his mouth at a long stroke of his cock, warring with himself over the stimulus and caving when Pitch finds his prostate. His eyes widen.
“No!”
It’s not pleasurable; it’s an invasion. He can’t ground himself in pain, can’t ignore the brief spikes of pleasure and he loathes himself for it.Each gasp disappears inside Pitch’s collarbone, the other leaning into the movements and pushing harder on Jack’s pelvis, ramming him into the rock beneath them. Jack screws his eyes shut, cutting ragged sighs into the dank air,
“Ah,”
Every
“Ah!”
Last
“Mn,”
Move
“Uhn,”
Hurts
“Ah, AH—!”
Pitch luxuriates in the sounds, every now and then lifting a lazy glare to spy on Jack’s increasingly conflicted approach.
“I hadn’t expected you to enjoy it so readily. This really must be your nightmare.”
He thrusts more sharply, gathering up on his haunches and pulling the other with him. Jack puts up a weak fight, every move rattling his core and its invader. It seems to humor Pitch: his grasp becomes looser, allowing Jack to twist and groan and try to hide his face. He doesn’t relinquish enough space to conceal anything, stretched over Jack as he is, thoroughly enjoying the view.
Within minutes, the initial searing pain has barely faded, and the scant arousal Jack had somehow managed is finally snuffed out. Shaking from tension, body drawn taut as a wire, he angles his hips in every direction, trying to find one position just a mite less painful. He receives nothing for his troubles. Pitch catches him in the act and grinds his wrists hard into the stone, barreling down into him and panting from exertion. Jack sobs louder, back arching as much as it can against the pressure bearing down on it. As they gain speed, the thrusts lose rhythm. Pitch grips his leg, mouth contorting against it, teeth gritting. With the added force, Jack scrapes along the rock, spine bunching where he’s not permitted to move. The hand around his wrists grows bruising tight and he shudders, cries broken from the piston movements inside of him.
And then, if possible, it hurts even more. Pitch comes with a series of brutal gasps, back shivering and face slack. His claws have extended and punctured Jack’s leg, red rivulets striping pale flesh. Jack can feel it all; the jolts of Pitch’s member as it tenses and releases deep within him, the warmth washing through his belly in long spurts. His head is turned to the side, eyes reddened and wide with fear. He trembles as he feels Pitch soften, relieving the horrid pressure at least some.
“This promises to be interesting,”
Jack has neither the energy nor the will to move. Pitch’s smile is hellishly satisfied.
“I’ve only ever seeded dreams; never spirits. Don’t you wonder what will grow?”
Jack tunes him out. His face is numb. His voice is dead. All he can see is the blood on the stone and the shadows leaping and roiling around the table. For all intents and purposes, Pitch has won.
He leans in close to Jack’s ear, earning a flinch as he pets back the matted hair at his forehead.
“Wake up, Jackie.”