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Few people can manage to maintain their worries while sitting on the sand of a Dreamland beach. Sandy looks over at Pitch, now curled up so that he can rest his chin on his knees, staring out onto the shining indigo waves with a small frown on his face and a little vertical line between his brows. He sighs. Few people could stay worried here, but of course Pitch was one of them.
He leans back and pushes his hands into the glittering sand. To be honest, Pitch’s resistance to Dreamland’s soothing power was one of the things that made Sandy confident that the feelings between them weren’t simply misguided infatuation, some attempt at a power play, or anything short-lived. They were equals. Just as Pitch’s fear could not overwhelm him, so could his calm not overwhelm Pitch.
They were the only ones who understood human minds the way they did. How could they not be meant to be together in some way?
“In some way,” Pitch had said, when Sandy had first made this argument. “Hate has maintained us for quite some time. Why should that change?”
Because maintaining quickly turned to stagnating. Because opposition did not require hate. Because how they had been was so obviously bad for Pitch. And because, finally, Sandy did not hate Pitch. And he didn’t think Pitch hated him either.
Pitch hadn’t said anything after that, but he had agreed to accompany Sandy to Dreamland. When they settled on the beach, all Pitch had said was, “We could destroy each other here,” before fixing his gaze on the sea.
Sandy inches closer to Pitch, leaning forward so that he can see the question mark floating above his head. Seeing it, Pitch turns to him, neither his posture nor his frown relaxing. He’s a grim sight, and an incongruous one, in his black robe as always. Sandy himself had decided to act as though they were going to a real beach, and to that purpose now wears gold swim trunks patterned with moons and stars.
“I don’t think you should trust me around all this dreamsand,” Pitch says. “I don’t think that we were meant to change. What you’re wearing right now makes that even more obvious than it was before.”
Sandy looks down at himself, pokes his plump belly. Did Pitch think that his staying in this particular form was because he couldn’t change it if he wanted? That wasn’t the important kind of change, for one thing, and for another, he thought he was quite cute…
“This isn’t about how attractive you are,” says Pitch, sounding oddly sad. “This is about the…the scar on your back. From where I shot you. Your body was gone, and when you re-formed, you kept the mark of what I did to you. So it obviously can’t be changed. No matter if I beg for forgiveness, no matter if you forgive me, that scar, showing how much I can hurt you, showing how much I wanted to hurt you—because I did, then, I did—will still be there. How could you dare to let someone who could almost destroy you, who wanted to destroy you…be closer than an enemy? It’s not really about hate. Because I don’t hate you. It’s about…keeping yourself safe.”
Like you’re keeping yourself safe now?
Pitch smirks. “Well, good point. I know I’m not worth keeping safe, so that leaves this all up to you and your common sense, which you’ve already shown to be lacking.” He snorts. “So, your place or mine?”
Sandy takes one of Pitch’s hands and kisses the knuckles, causing Pitch to blush. You’re not ready for that.
“So you’re serious about this,” Pitch whispers.
Do you find it so hard to believe that I would be wise enough to see the delight and wonder in terror? Sandy looks out to sea. And if I could convince you that you were worth protecting, I would, even if that meant it would take me another age to get you back on this beach.
“If I believed you it would be easy for you to destroy me. Easier.”
Sandy turns back to him. We can already destroy each other. We have that power. But we do not. We stay our hands, because we are part of a balance as old as humanity. And, because we…do not hate each other.
“How do I not hate you?” Pitch muses. “I do not hate you, because hate is a pale word. Love is a pale word, too. There are other expressions. Other half, counterpart. Those are even worse. You live behind my every thought. I must oppose you, but I cannot bear to be separated from you. I want to consume you, though you would burn me from the inside. I want you to consume me, though I would poison you. I want to walk with you in the night in perfect amity. I want to fight until we are both beaten too bloody to move. I want us to be so often together that humans begin to fear you, and find me a comfort. I—but that would require being seen.” Pitch pulls himself into his compact pose of earlier.
Sandy places his hand on Pitch’s. That is part of the balance. I think if we completed it with more than hate, you would be…I will not say restored, for you were never what you should be. The same is true for me.
Pitch lifts his head and looks out at Dreamland, dunes and spires and shifting palace, deep sea and deeper sky, this island only one in an endless archipelago of wonder. “What an alarming thought.”
Sandy smiles warmly at him. Oh, and I would also like to say that I don’t hate you in the same way you don’t hate me.
Pitch gulps. “But the scar?”
A sign that we are equals. A reminder for you, since you’re the only one that can see it.
Pitch laughs and relaxes a little, stretching his legs out in front of him and sitting up straight. “So…just so I’m clear…we two. Mortal enemies since our beginnings. Now making, not exactly a truce, but…an addition to the things we do to each other. Which might make us even more powerful. Using, as a symbol of our eternal bond and equity, a scar left behind from when I did my level best to murder you. You say it will remind me, but it’s only visible when you’re half-naked. So you plan to be in that state a great deal around me, now?”
Of course not. I intend to be fully naked.
Pitch blushes again. “Indeed. Ah, that is, I will not deny that some of my thoughts of you have tended—Sandy, I am a terrible creature possessed of power perhaps only you understand, but I have been alone for a very long time…thinking myself worthless.”
We have world enough and time. I know. Don’t worry.
They sit in silence for a little while. Sandy’s pleased to note that Pitch has relaxed enough to stop thinking about his robe so much, letting it fall open.
“What about the Guardians?” Pitch asks.
Sandy shrugs. They’ll get used to it. There’s strangeness and power in all of them, too, even if they don’t understand all of it yet. We’re not the only ones in balance. Just the oldest.
“So when I get greedy and you all have to fight fear?”
I’ll be the only one who can stop you, but I’ll kiss your bloody lips afterward.
“The marked improvement in our situation becomes clearer by the minute.” Pitch smiles. “Is there anything we should do—to make this official?”
Sandy catches Pitch’s eyes with his own and holds his gaze for a long moment. Face the scar. Tell me about it. Not with words, which are all pale. With your hands. Tell me how you understand you no longer need to stay a bowshot away from me. He turns his back to Pitch, and Pitch turns to him. He takes a deep breath, and moves to sit so that his long legs frame Sandy.
With a tentative hand, he reaches out and touches the very center of the scar with a long finger. It’s smooth, shiny, taut. He adds another finger, and another, until he is spreading his whole hand over the star shaped scar. There are too many points for one hand to cover it completely, and his fingers don’t match it, so most of his fingertips now touch Sandy’s soft, supple skin.
“You’d believe me wholeheartedly if I started to sing your praises, wouldn’t you?” Pitch asks, and Sandy nods. “Spoiled creature.”
He traces his fingers around all the edges of the scar, using both hands, glad Sandy can’t see his face right now. He’s pretty sure his expression is nothing but bare want, bare need, but all he can stand to let himself take right now are slow touches of Sandy’s glorious, warm, freckled skin. Some freckles shine, some do not. He slides his hands slowly over Sandy’s back, leaving the scar so he can touch each one. He loses himself in these little constellations, caressing and kneading a chimera on his waist, a serpent on his spine, a kraken of glitter spreading across his shoulders.
When he finally pauses, Sandy looks at him over his shoulder, and Pitch is surprised to see a bright flush on Sandy’s face.
I didn’t realize how the opposite of the arrow would be. If dreamsand could be breathless...
“Perhaps we should sleep now?” Pitch murmurs, and Sandy nods. Before he can tell himself he shouldn’t, Pitch pulls Sandy close to him, leaning over so they’re lying spooned on the soft sand of the beach. Sandy presses himself closer to Pitch’s chest and settles Pitch’s nervous hand on the curve of his belly. Pitch nuzzles his face into Sandy’s hair, and smiles. Oh yes. He could get used to this. The perfect way to end their future battles, definitely.
Pitch finally closes his eyes in Dreamland, his heart beating against the scar on Sandy’s back.