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Daddy! Daddy, I’m scared!
Daddy, where are you? They’re hurting me!
Daddy?
He was running, running as fast as his legs could carry him, cursing the stiffness of his uniform. His daughter’s cries sliced through the air, echoed in his head. No. He’d make it. He’d save her.
Fear was clenching in his throat, hissing along the searing stich in his side. I’m coming, love. I’m coming. I’ll save you. He had to, he had to. He’d save her, and then they’d burn for frightening his little one. They’d all burn.
Daddy, please! Help!
The wooden staircase was rickety, creaking, his frantic steps thundering along to the heart that threatened to burst inside his thin chest. But he never seemed to get farther up though he took the stairs two at a time, breath wheezing in and out as he relentlessly quickened his pace. They stretched on and on, looming and roaring and laughing at him, a cruel, grating sound that clawed at his senses.
Some distant part of him knew he was yelling, trying to reassure his daughter that he was coming, that it would be alright. Dimly he noted the weight of his rifle in his cold hands, the stock and barrel already slick with sweat.
scared
hurting
Daddy
please Daddy
He halted as though he’d hit a brick wall, the sharp crack of gunfire piercing his ears and the acrid burn of powder filling his nostrils. His vision was a red haze, all blazing rage and icy terror and kill kill kill and when he opened his eyes again all he could do was scream and scream –
Pitch Black woke on a gasp, teeth bared and hands extended like claws, breathing hard and harsh and hardly feeling the burbling wetness on his cheeks. He blinked a moment, eyes adjusting to the monochrome greyness of his lair. Everything in his dream had been so vibrant, so alive…
A sob choked out of him then, his face falling into his hands as he curled into himself. The image flashed back to him of his daughter’s body bruised and broken and bloody, fear still riding stark in her now lightless eyes. Of how he’d cradled her, weeping and cursing and shaking his head, until moments later another shot rang out through the room and he fell as his daughter had fallen.
A warmth, and odd sort of glow prodded gently at his senses then, and he froze momentarily before letting loose a feral snarl and swiping at the source.
“Leave me!”
The warmth paused a moment, as though it was considering its options. It withdrew a moment before returning, gentler this time, hovering just above his shoulders.
“I said leave!” Pitch raked his arm out in a whip-quick sweeping motion, blackening the soothing glow. Angrily he swiped at his tears, ignoring them in favor of harnessing his fury. Maybe a fight would be good. Maybe a fight would help him forget, if only for a few moments.
Sinking into the boiling darkness of a nearby corner, he gathered his power to him, lashed out with it. Burning gold met it midair in a clash of white-hot sparks, the tips of the sand-made whips going black and shriveled for just a moment.
Pitch searched desperately for the thrill that usually came with battle, that glorious heady feeling that lanced into his veins when he spread fear and turned others to be like him. It was the only thing that had kept him going all these long centuries, in the absence of the belief he’d once enjoyed, cultivated, cared for as one would a lover.
But it had been a cold embrace, and now he could find no enjoyment in it. Not since he’d tried to win back the belief of the world. Not since the Moon’s blasted holy army had come to send him spiraling back to where he’d started, dragged back to his own personal hell of fear and doubt and self-deprecation. They’d left him to rot whilst they celebrated in the love showered upon them. As it always had been, and likely would always be.
Suddenly exhausted, the fight in him draining away as quickly as it had risen, the Nightmare King slumped to the ground and cloaked himself in shadows. They may lack any semblance of comfort but at least they were something he knew how to deal with. Prying, bothersome, sappy Guardians were another matter.
His adversary, weapons now withdrawn, came forward then into the weak light that filtered down from the world above. His face showed no trace of the hard mask of determination, of concentration that had been firmly in place only moments earlier. No, Sandman looked merely curious now, as if Pitch were some fascinating new dream he’d never seen before.
He looked for you, after. He’s not like them, not entirely.
What could he possibly want from the likes of me?
But the little man stayed silent and still, not even conjuring a question mark to float above his shining, spiky hair. The silence dragged on, becoming deafening, a steadily-growing itch under the pallor of Pitch’s skin.
“You saw?” he rasped, when he could take it no longer.
Sandman nodded, and his gaze was sorrowful.
“Then you know.” He barked a mirthless scoff of a laugh. “I’m more a monster than you could ever imagine.”
Sandman’s eyes went sharp and frowning, and he stamped his foot in impatience as he shook his head.
“Come now, surely you’re not so foolish to believe otherwise.”
“Enough.” The word was quiet, hardly above a whisper, yet it had one black brow arching in surprise.
“And here I thought you never spoke so as to keep those precious children of yours dreaming the drivel you feed them. Aren’t you afraid you’ll wake them?”
“They cannot hear me here. Not even He knows.”
“The Man in the Moon knows all, you little fool.”
Sandman sighed, but shut his mouth all the same. If you say so, his noncommittal shrug seemed to say.
“Look at you.” Pitch’s voice was sneering, disdainful over the underlying tremor. “So quick to be quelled by a master that has earned nothing from you. And what ever would the Guardians think, seeing their dreamer cavorting with the Boogeyman?”
Something like guilt passed over the other’s usually soft features in a wince, but Sandy dismissed it with a toss of his head. Even if they did know, he’d find his own way of justifying it. He was Guardian of Dreams, was he not? It was who he’d been for more than a millennia, who he’d become. It was more than a job, more than a duty. It was all that he was, and all that he would ever be. He was the living incarnation of dreams.
And good or bad, naughty or nice, he would protect them with his life.
“I’d say sweet dreams, but there aren’t any left.”
Well, he was just going to have to prove him wrong on that score. He’d done it once before, had he not? Lost his existence, if not his life, in the process. Certainly there was nothing stopping him from showing Pitch how wrong he was a second time.
Golden eyes clearing, he came slowly forward until he was a mere foot away from darkened corner Pitch had hidden himself in. The other opened his mouth to make some cutting remark, but was silenced by the warning look Sandy sent him.
He waited a heartbeat, then began to weave and wave his hands in flowing, complicated gestures. Dream-sand materialized in the air, following the trace of his fingers, floating and surging and intertwining in a mesmerizing dance.
Pitch scowled and drew himself deeper, down into himself. He didn’t need any arms around him, no empty words to calm him. If he wanted to wallow who was to gainsay him?
A sharp heat, almost like a pinch to his flesh had him snapping back to reality. Sandman stood with his arms crossed, glaring with equal parts frustration and fondness down at him – fondness? Have you gone mad? He’s one of them. He cannot be trusted, and seeks only to humiliate you further. And indeed, the shining coils of dreams were still there, long and twining themselves about one another in anticipation. Waiting for their next instructions.
“You just don’t get the hint, do you?” But his voice was tired, lacking the venom he felt. “You’re not wanted.”
“That may be so. But you do want something, Pitch Black. You have nightmares as all others do, dreams made of pain and of poison that haunt you still.” Sandman’s tone, in contrast, betrayed none of the exasperation on his features. It was quiet, rational. Understanding. “You know what I am, as I know what you are. You know I can help you, if you’d have me.”
“Like you ‘helped’ me after you won, you mean? When you snuck to me like a dishonest child, seeking to make amends? All you helped me to do was fall from grace, and then you proclaimed your victory from the roof-tops while I withered in the dark! I was broken and defeated by your hand, Sanderson, because you felt nothing, nothing, for my struggle!”
He was on his feet without realizing it, and suddenly Sandman was staggering backwards, raising a hand to the black mark across his cheek where Pitch had struck him. But still he did not waver, pausing only to right himself before advancing again.
And again Pitch struck, and again Sandman stumbled. Two, three, four more times, each blow harder than the last and each blow allowed to land. Sandy was making no move to defend himself, and that snatched at Black’s rage more than anything else.
“Come on! Fight me!”
“No.”
Hissing, he struck again, this time drawing a dark line of blood over Sandman’s temple. “Fight me!”
He shook his head, swaying where he stood. “No matter how you ask it of me, Pitch, I will not.”
Chest heaving, a scream of rage building in his throat even as hot tears leaked from his eyes, Pitch threw up his hands and vanished.
He didn’t want help. He didn’t want to be made to feel any more vulnerable than he already was. He didn’t need to be coddled, damn it. He was the bloody Boogeyman, for pity’s sake. He could take care of himself.
Sandman sensed more than saw Pitch’s relocation to a deeper part of his caves. He sagged a moment, breathing hard, cheek singing with pain. He sensed also as the other began to slip into sleeping, and that had him off and soaring.
He could not help the twist in his heart at the sight that greeted him, of Pitch Black laying sprawled and with tear-tracks on his cheeks on the hard stone floor, under one of the innumerable staircases that littered the place. The grieving anger still etched upon his face, his jaw clenched even as slumber claimed him.
Maybe I’m tired of hiding under beds!
You think I don’t know what it’s like to be cast out?
There will always be fear
Yes, thought Sandman. There would always be fear, and forgetting what mattered, and despair, and a refusal to see what was good in the world. Pitch had had the right of that, at the end. And while Sandman knew he couldn’t change the past by wishing, he could do what he could to make the present not so hard to face.
He closed his eyes, brought his hands together and let the warmth, the love, the joy of a happy dream build under his skin. He breathed it in, let it take flight, and when his hands parted a wealth of sand burst forth to take shape.
He concentrated, focusing on the hurt, and the ever-present fear that now circled through the other’s tired mind. He took his sand, pushed it out and forward till it dipped down towards Pitch’s hair, eased the deep lines in his forehead and relaxed the tension riding along his spine.
There. He’d done what he could. He could help no more, until help was asked for. But for now, he could give Pitch the dreams he wanted. It was another part of his gift, the one thing he always knew: people’s greatest dreams.
Sandman heaved a silent sigh, then smiled to himself and drifted away, back to the world above where night would be falling soon. He had children to see to.
Not long after he’d left, the corner of Pitch’s mouth turned up, just a little. For a moment, the nightmares were kept at bay. For a moment, the Nightmare King dreamed of different times, and was all the better for it.