Chapter Text
Everywhere Jack looked was black. He turned and turned, weightless and submerged, pleading for light. Every star had dimmed and died out, the darkness enveloping his body and leaving him stranded. He guessed that he was in space, floating aimlessly until he found a ship or left to die out in the open nothingness. Suddenly, he twisted in pain and turned, the force spinning him round and never letting him stop - the memories of how he got here piecing his skull, never easing or letting go, like a terrible ache that could never be soothed.
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Pitch turned and looked down at Jack, the smaller boy cowering in front of him and hiding his face. Pitch grasped a handful of Jack's hair and pulled him back, forcing his head up and leaving him at the General's mercy. Tears streamed down Jack's face, his chest heaving with silent sobs as he read the disgust in his master's face.
"I should never have trusted you; I should never have even chosen you. You are useless and worthless, and it's a wonder I ever saw anything in you. You are good only for a fuck, but even now, you can't get that right. I should sell you and drink away the earnings, but I doubt I'd get anything for you. Imagine the humiliation - the General's plaything, who couldn't be sold at an auction, what would they do to you?"
He released the hand in Jack's hair and pushed him forward, smirking as Jack couldn't block the fall and landed on the cold marble floor. Unsheathing his dagger from his belt, Pitch dropped his knee into the small of Jack's back and pressed down, feeling his weight press Jack further into the floor. Pitch untied his hair and used the cord to secure the younger man's hands, ignoring Jack's pleas and pulling tighter.
"They'd pull you off the stage and keep you tied like an animal, then every night they would take you to a bar and let every man have his way with you, then drag you back out to the next one. They would whip you and burn you, and leave you in lying in shit until they have use of you, or the next auction comes around. They'd kill you before the year is up because you are worthless, and marked and used."
Pitch pulls Jack's tunic and slices it off, throwing it to the ground and not caring that it's tight around Jack's neck. Jack struggles for breath, but then that doesn't matter because all he can feel is cold and hot and pain, searing pain everywhere, as Pitch pushes the dagger through the skin around Jack's ribs, in and out, veiling the dagger in skin and then back out.
Jack's eyes are closed and all he can see is white, his body burns and everything hurts. He can hear Pitch talking, his voice deep and like the finest velvet, but his words hurt more than the incisions. He's used to Pitch's moods, but they've never been this bad. Jack fears for his life - the one he was promised would be changed if he boarded the ship as a servant and gave up his powers. The binding bracelets lie heavy on his wrists and ankles, controlling his power and merging with the thoughts of his Master, and Jack is so, so scared.
---
The memories cease as quickly as they had started, leaving Jack with an emptiness like loud static suddenly turned off. In the distance, there's a blur, and a dim grey light appears. Jack stares, minutes pass, and the light brightens from grey to blinding white. Another one appears, and Jack watches again. Hours go, maybe days, until the whole sky is the same as it once was - restored to its shining glory with stars of every colour shining in harmony. Jack floats on, still, not knowing what to do next. He glances to his wrists, expecting to see the red marks left by the cord and the golden bands of his cuffs but there's nothing. The stories of the bands come back to haunt him, the ones he was told when he was young, and when his family taunted him. The bands would never go, they said. The bands would stay as a permanent reminder of how Jack never belonged, how wrong his power was and how he should be ashamed of it.
His family. It would be wrong to say that he never loved them, but he had never forgiven them for driving him out and making him end up... here. Something turns deep inside Jack, a feeling like his skin is on fire and that he's about to explode. He gasps in shock - he hasn't felt this way since he was bound - but lets the power surge through him.
White ice, almost like sand, trickles from his fingers and swirls around him, creating his own universe of frosted stars and ice ships. Pitch was wrong. Jack is the artist of his own world, and he paints his fantasy with frost. He curls in on himself, surrounded by the comforting glow of the starlight filtering through his ice kingdom.
He sleeps with a smile, a perfect frost boy.