[ broadcast mind; "what if" ❄ image heavy ]

[icy]

"I thought this might happen." The voice is low and unassuming, but it rankles and your teeth grind, gripping your staff tightly on reflex. "They never really believed in you," says Pitch. "I was just trying to show you that. But I understand."

Furiously, a shot of ice swerves at the sole shadowy figure in the pristine tundra, smashing off a rise of black sand that veers up.

"You don't understand anything!"

"I don't understand what it's like to be cast out?" Pitch deflects your attacks but you don't care, leaping onto a frigid breeze and yelling hoarsely as you blast him with more ice. I wish I could bury you in it; I wish I could bury myself. Still, he bats aside your attempts to freeze him on the spot. There's a muffled explosion and ice shatters into dust, veiling him from view inside a muggy cloud. It's hard to breathe with your chest so constricted, wanting and deserving no one to sympathize with you, especially him. It's his fault! If he hadn't kept you down in his stupid lair then maybe ...

It's your fault, Jack. You can't shake the truth of it. You're alone and he knows it.

"To not be believed in?" finishes Pitch. Rounding on him, he stands before you unarmed (ha) and you don't immediately fire. "To long for a family?"

Wrong-footed, the staff in your hands lowers, confusion seeping into the cracks of your grief. Why would Pitch want anyone, you think, frowning, but then he goes on and something aches as you listen, losing the will to argue.

"All these years in the shadows, I thought no one else knows what this feels like ... but now I see I was wrong."

Too astonished to tell him to stop messing with your head, on some level you know he's telling the truth. You do know what it's like to be the outcast and there's nothing you've wanted more than to have someone see you. Touch you. Talk to you.

This is stupid.

Pitch nears, urgency in his coaxing, gentle voice as he reads your fears.

"We don't have to be alone, Jack. I believe in you and I know children will too."

"In me?" you wonder aloud, doubtfully. Pitch laughs.

"Yes!" His hand lays on your shoulder and it grounds you in the moment, the future he paints in the shadow of the looming model of Black Ice your fight moments ago wrought, perfectly sharp spikes curving elegantly toward the sky. "Look," purrs Pitch, "at what we can do. What goes together better than cold and dark?"

You can see your reflection in the statue as Pitch makes his case, growing more and more animated.

"We'll give them a world where everything, everything is —"

"'Pitch Black'?" you interject, already seeing where this is going.

"And Jack Frost, too. They'll believe in both of us."

No, it's on the tip of your tongue. No, they'll fear both of us and that's not what I want. Except ...

Except you've completely run out of choices, your options are exhausted. Three hundred years weigh heavily on your shoulders and the last few days with the Guardians has proved nothing but the fact you're not as holy or good as they are. You don't want to go back to being ignored. Worse still (you sigh and Pitch's eyes widen) you don't want to be the reason you're alone forever.

Silence hinges as you lower your staff and you close your eyes, answering softly.

"Alright."

The ensuing years together bring a winter that no one expects, long and harsh with even longer nights. Pitch helps to get you your believers, nightmares of icy claws scratching down windows terrifies the young and old alike until there are new fables, new traditions that spring up almost over-night: salt on the roof, that's your favorite. Pitch grins as you use the Wind to blow away the filaments and sink your staff into tiles, the shrieks of people inside causing startled laughter to bubble up when someone wails It's Jack Frost!

Jack Frost is here!

They're afraid of you, but Pitch isn't. He's surprised by just how demanding of his time you are and it always brings a pleasant echo of warmth when he finds you waiting for him in his underground lair, perched on the edge of a bridge like a tamed bird that he ruffles the hair of. You aren't and that's why, you think, that he appreciates how often you come back to his side. You want his delight to last forever, but eventually after half a century it feels like your friendship is thinning.

"For goodness's sake, Jack," he sighs one evening when you've been restlessly rifling through the books on old shelves, "why don't you go out alone?"

"It's no fun," you murmur with a shrug, tossing a book aside. His expression darkens, a flash of teeth under a curled lip. You spread your arms (sleeves have long-torn when people tried to drag you down decades ago and ice now eclipses the shredded cuffs of your old hoodie, ending your hands in claws; he probably doesn't like how easily you tear pages). "Don't you want to do something new? I'm bored."

"How can you possibly be bored when you're in the middle of whipping up a new Ice Age?"

"I just am!" you snap, and frost crackles across the floor, jutting out from behind your head. It gives cause for concern, apparently, and Pitch leaves his desk to stand before you — still so tall and pensive, but now he's stronger than he used to be with bright eyes and less gray in his hair — as his hands cup the sides of your head. 

A cold crown.

"What is this," he says to himself, following it around to the spikes protruding in front of your ears. Amusement dances at the corners of his lips. "Finally taking the title literally, 'Winter Prince'?" Golden eyes catch blue, snagging in place, and he lets the touch fall when he sees how hungry you still are for contact. The icy crown is sharp enough to draw blood, after all, and you've never been very good at staying still for long. "Jack."

"Take me to the workshop."

"What? No."

"I'm not going to stay here and watch you write all night," you snap derisively. "You haven't made a real storm with me in weeks."

The shadows darken as Pitch's ire grows. "I'm busy," he says with great self-control. He probably wants to tack on a whole lot more.

"You can't be too busy for me." The words stick in your throat.

"I assure you, I can."

The indignant smash of your staff sends a jolt of shock through both of you, your temper something wild and vicious like a hailstorm (outside, one begins). For a long moment you stare at one another, a wall of inch-thick ice now covering his entire bookcase. He watches you like you're a rabid creature as you walk bare-footed to close the new distance he's put between you, suddenly terrified he's going to back away again; he does not. Of course he doesn't. Pitch stands his ground warily, reading you like any one of those books.

"Take me there," you insist, immeasurably grateful when he doesn't flinch as your hand snatches his own. "Please," comes out strained and soft. He's learned so much about you these past fifty years that his own weaknesses haven't gone unnoticed; he's the only person you do waste enough time to focus on, these days. It annoys him to be implored from the heart, so you do it whenever you want something that you can't take.

Shadows shift as he transports you both, and the world it seems grows dimmer in the wreckage of North's old home. Destroyed, the colors have faded with time since the defeat of the Guardians. Beams have rotted and fallen through and there's a silence that cloys mournfully to the once-magnificent hubbub of wonder that you wander ahead of Pitch. He lingers behind, coming to a halt when you see something small and shiny-red in the dull splinters. A tiny wooden baby, barely bigger than your little finger, with wide blue eyes.

Something catches in your throat that you haven't felt in years but it's welcome, it fractures the ice around your heart. It hurts so that you don't realize you're on the verge of a panic attack until your back hits something soft and arms wrap around you securely, a chin digging into white hair.

"Jack," Pitch says quietly, over the sound of heaving, would-be sobs. You screw your eyes shut and shake your head, listing forward. He keeps you upright. Everything's going to be the same as ever, nothing will change. You're the one who destroyed this, it's all on you and you can never, ever take back your mistakes. This is the worst place you could have come, why you're allowed to be around anyone is beyond you. Pitch should just use his shadows to — 

"Jack," he hushes, loyal as a brother. "Jack, let's go home."

Home triggers a wounded noise somewhere lost inside your chest. His robe is soft and thick when you turn into it, crushing the little doll to nothing so you can fist your hand in dark material instead. A long-fingered hand strokes your hair, soothing the abortive shuddering that locks you rigid as ice, afraid of too much to put into words, a dull pain blossoming behind your eyes. It's impossible to cry when you're so, so cold.

"I'm sorry," you say in a small voice after several minutes spent greedily soaking up the sensation of behind cared for, feeling Pitch nod above. "About getting angry. I'm sorry."

"I don't mind," Pitch replies, which you think is a lie but if it keeps him wrapped around you like a veil from the world then let him.

"Can we go somewhere else tonight?"

It's a strange request and it shows in the way he tilts a curious look down at you. Ordinarily you'd take to the winds and cause havoc in a different country to pass the time, as he suggested. It's been a while since your dual storms wracked the globe. You don't know why he seems so surprised by how badly you want him around when he's all you've got, your other half. Cold and dark.

"Germany?" he finally suggests, prompting a small smile that has him snorting fondly when you look up. A thumb toys with the ice cemented around your skull. "The old forests, perhaps."

"Those are my favorite."

"I know." His hand pats you on the head and your inner tempest calms, forehead pressing into his coat as he sighs. "I know, Jack."

The workshop dissolves into nothing, and you hold onto the shadows with a grip like death.



(OOC: Taking the mods' prompt for this BCM, everything after Jack agrees to go with Pitch is AU, What If. Images and music provided to help set the scene, Pitch written under the approving eye of our own amazing Boogeyman!)

Comments

action;

[rideofthefearlings]

[ He elects not to waste time trying to address Jack through the Forge-- there will be enough people, he supposes, likely enough to do that once this became widely viewed. Instead he focused on locating the spirit and this time shooed the Nightmares away; even Mora, who gave him a look of equine reproach.

The lake is snow covered and icy again, much like his clock tower had been (he had been going to express how not subtle that had been, given he preferred as few people as possible knew where he made his respites. But the rebuke has thawed much like the frost on the brick (it wouldn't have been strong, not after Pepin's arrival) and it's hardly a whisper in the back of his mind as the shadows pull inwards from the trees though he does not step from them yet. ]

Jack.

[icy]

[ To say he's both fascinated and haunted by the images that diverge from reality wouldn't be a stretch. Having retreated to his pond (now determinedly covered in snow and ice for a half-mile across the ruins), he sits on a sunken boulder by the edge cross-legged. The line of tension in his shoulders tightens when he hears Pitch's voice, choosing not to look over out of mingled shame and embarrassment. Guilt.

Taking something out of his lap, absently worked over after the third or fourth time spent watching the fraudulent memory, it drops to the ground from loose fingers to embed in the snow with a soft thump; an icy crown. ]

You looked really good. Healthier.

[ But at a massive cost that he doesn't want to consider ever, ever happening. ]

[rideofthefearlings]

A shame I could not have said the same.

[ He moves to the edge of the lake, hears the crunch of frozen mud beneath his feet as he comes to a stop just shy of where the water would have started. ]

What was that? How could the Forge have shown something neither a memory nor true like that...

[icy]

I was wondering the same thing. [ Leaning over his knees, he rests his staff against a shoulder and idly rubs the wood as snow begins to fall again. ] Maybe I started having a nightmare halfway through and ruined it.

[ Shaking his head. Who knows? ]

... They put salt on the roof. [ A wan smile flits across his lips and then is gone as if it never were. ] I'd hate that.

video;

[watcheslanterns]

[Rapunzel has absolutely no idea what is going on. The broadcast leaves her confused, and more than a little concerned about Jack's whereabouts.]

Jack? Jack, where are you?

video;

[icy]

[ He calls back shortly, trees and snow behind him. ]

I'm okay! I'm okay, Rapunzel, I'm at the pond.

video;

[watcheslanterns]

But what was that? With you and Pitch and everything?

video;

[icy]

I ... think those were my memories. Kind of. [ OR!! ] Or I broke the Forge.

Or my brain.

[ dfnfkjgdjs ]

I really don't know. Uh, is this your first time seeing inside someone's head with these things?

video. a bit after butt talk.

[tiaraaction]

[Usagi can't begin to imagine feeling this kind of loneliness. She can't fathom ever feeling the way Jack has felt; this is her greatest fear, being left alone. She swallows.

It's hard, trying to be normal in situations like these. She doesn't know how he does it. ]

Have you ever made so much snow that you had to take a break?

video. hehe butt talk.

[icy]

I once passed out on the ice in Antarctica after using up a lot of energy. Couldn't find my staff when I came around, turns out I'd left it about a half-mile back.

[ He remembers waking up and wondering how long he'd been out. Days, apparently. ]

video. spends 6 million years searching for his butt

[tiaraaction]

You need someone looking after you all the time. What if some ghost bear had eaten you, huh?

[Usagi speak for: wow, take care of yourself friend. ]

video. the globes of destiny

[icy]

How would a ghost eat anything?

[ WHAT IS THIS LOGIC? HAHA. ]

[video]

[dragonconqueror]

[Hiccup had experienced loneliness before, but nothing to the extent Jack must have felt there. Obviously to him the memory isn't a real memory - Jack looks nothing like the person he became here, acts nothing like the person in the broadcast. But he can understand that kind of desperation, maybe. Before Toothless he would've done anything to be noticed.

Instead of saying any of that, he just quips;]

Your dress sense kinda sucked after a while.

[video]

[icy]

My what? [ That earns a laugh because wow, trust Hiccup to floor him with something completely weird. Flatly, he snorts and returns in kind: ] Says the guy wearing half a bear.

[video]

[dragonconqueror]

[He rolls his eyes.]

Hey, I get cold. You have no excuse.

[video]

[icy]

You don't have to be so obviously jealous of my mad fashion sense, Hiccup, it's okay. Take a deep breath and count to ten.

[voice]

[isherarmor]

[Gods be good what can she even say. But she thinks she knows what it is, and she swallows her fear (her revulsion, her disappointment, her sorrow) down to cool sickly in her chest. It's a moment before she finds any words.]

At least you had each other.

[No, no that's decidedly not what she wanted to say, and perhaps he can hear her head shake, and better still the frustrated huff at herself.]

But it isn't real. It didn't happen - you would never...

...you would never break, so, Jack.

[voice]

[icy]

[ He wonders what his friends would think of him if he said it was real. ]

It didn't happen, you're right. I turned him down and we ... went our separate ways. [ Leaving out the part about his staff being broken, since that's a little personal and he's almost glad he was spared anyone seeing it happen. ] I don't know what half of this is. It looks like a nightmare, ironically.

[voice]

[isherarmor]

[He could ask them just that. He might be surprised. Or ...not.]

But you did find each other again, here, didn't you? And, well ...maybe it's for the best.

The Forge seems to like the nightmares best of all. Which is a little rude of it, isn't it?

[There's a little laugh in her question, though.]

Video; Private

[swordofthehawk]

[Casca is, at first, rather speechless given what she's seen, on behalf of both Jack and Pitch, but also on behalf of herself, for it is with both of them that she finds herself acquainted, Pitch most closely of all. These visions (because surely that's all they are?) send chills (no pun intended) down her spine. She thinks, That can't be how things happened, but even as she does, even as she believes it to be true, she wonders if maybe, just maybe, this dream is a reflection of what could one day come to pass in their world, if they should return.]

[It is due to such thoughts that she responds rather tentatively.]

Jack? [It's a terrible thing, wanting to receive answers to questions you're not sure you have a right to ask.] Jack...what was that?

[Besides terribly cold and uncomfortable to witness. Terribly...sad.]

Video; Private

[icy]

[ He doesn't know how to get around the fact that he and Pitch working together evidently turns into a mess, no matter where they are. He definitely doesn't like it or want to believe it.

It's just so hard not to with the evidence right there. ]

A memory and a nightmare. That's what I'm going with, I'm not the authority on this stuff.

Video; Private

[swordofthehawk]

I'm sorry.

[That he had to dream such a thing, that it's troubling him, that she asked, had to know...]

...You're both plenty believed in here, though. Right?

[Enough to keep such things from happening? No need for disasters like that to unfold. No need for either of them to be alone. They might quarrel, but if that dream is any indication, it doesn't matter what happens or how close they get: Pitch Black and Jack Frost will always disagree on some things.]

[Which doesn't mean they are, either of them, incapable of getting close to one another. Of being...friends?]

[misfortunes_heir]

Oh, I see!

[He can't help himself— it's Jack! It's hard to say no to watching Jack. But this is a familiar scene, the dark offer, the commisseration, demands made and met in kind. A partnership.

Fai knows this compromise, perhaps briefly, but oh, so very well.]

You became friends?

[icy]

No, it didn't pan out that way. I didn't hang out with him at all, this whole recording looks like it took a little detour into fantasy land.

[ Fai gets a wave, however. ]

[misfortunes_heir]

[He grins a little at the wave, and ducks his head. It's been too long...]

But, are you friends now? He's...kinda spooky, right? I like spooky people too. Like Kurogane and Se— [And Severus] ...and stuff.