[FIC] Be Careful What You Wish For
Rating: PG-15 maybe?
Genre and/or Pairing: Pitch Black/Sandman, humor
Spoilers: takes place after the movie
Warnings: adult situations, possible implied dub-con
Summary: Pitch Black has a problem, and he enlists Jack's help.
A/N: Fox wrote this (I only proofread!) to go along with her picture.
The place is Seattle; the season is winter.
Sleet pattered on the sidewalk making busy evening Christmas shoppers slip and fumble with their heavy packages as they cursed the holidays and the cold. Although it was still not bedtime, winter’s long nights had set in and no children were out at that hour. Most were already home sitting down to dinners cooked up by their haggard parents, or glued like zombies to the television. Yet, amid the trudging of feet and honking of car horns, a cold wind picked up playfully, whistling and tumbling along the sidewalk like a boisterous puppy.
It raced by the swaddled red-nosed shoppers who in turn brred and bundled themselves deeper into their coats. It weaved in and out of their legs as they hustled into warmly lit department stores or trendy Asian fusion noodle houses to avoid it. The wind skipped along the streets and down alleys as if searching, pausing to swirl dust and sleet around the dingy street lamps, finally dying down to a breeze at the steps of The Jumping Bean Coffee House.
“Here we are,” whispered a voice, soft as falling snow.
A boy with a porcelain pale face and blueish bare feet stopped to fish a rumpled slip of paper with an address written upon it out of his pocket. Seemingly satisfied, he stepped right through the coffee shop window, leaving a faint frosted handprint where he had touched the glass.
Inside the coffee shop, it was uncomfortably warm and humid; coats drying on the radiators gave off plumes of steam which rose into the air like feathers. The boy tugged at the collar of his blue hoodie, scanning the room as he did so. He wondered who could have sent the note. Anyone who would normally contact him had their own unique calling cards - Northern Lights, tiny fairies, pink squawking ducks - but this would have been a mortal for sure. By the urgent tone of the note suggesting a time and place for a meeting, whoever this was, they needed his help.
He moved easily among and through the tightly packed, bored twenty- and thirty-somethings. His corporeal form was invisible to them in their ennui of early onset adulthood, so he knew he was looking for a young face. The shop was cozy and small, so once he reached the far end of the coffee house, he shrugged and turned, thinking perhaps some mistake had occurred.
Then, he stiffened. In the very back of the shop, beneath a row of dim bulbs sat the elegant aquiline figure that still haunted his dreams. With his back to the boy, the figure was so dark that it seemed that it’s body sucked in all light. A black hole in the shape of a man - monstrous and brooding.
"Pitch," the boy growled to himself, staring at the dark man from beneath the frosted blue hem of his hoodie. He tightened his grip on his staff and padded towards the back of the coffee shop, walking brusquely through a pair of bored hipsters bobbing their heads to shoegaze.
Sensing the nip of cold, the dark figure in the corner froze for a moment, shoulders tensing as if electrified.
Jack Frost loped towards Pitch Black swiftly, body galvanized. “Pitch, don’t you dare even think about it; people could die in here. If you have a fight to pick, we’re doing it outside….”
The voice that responded was soft, almost seductive if it wasn’t for the fine grains of odium beneath the silken surface. “Don’t be absurd. I wouldn’t waste a perfectly wretched evening like this getting my ass handed to me. Come. Sit.” Pitch pushed a steaming cup of hot cocoa towards Jack, next to a plate with a brownie topped with a dollop of ice cream. A peace offering, no doubt.
Every fiber in Jack’s body told him to run, to head back to his home as fast as the wind could carry him and warn the others, but somehow, something in Pitch’s voice pinned him there; something strangely sad, almost desperate.
Afterall, Jack’s heart was frozen, but not cold.
Slowly, he walked around to the other side of the small table, pulling a chair over nonchalantly. He flipped it backwards and sat with his arms crossed over the back, jaw set in a grim frown.
“Pitch Black. Been a while,” he quipped as he flicked a bit of black dust off his hoodie. He looked up at his adversary and stopped mid-sentence, one eyebrow hoisted like a flag.
“…wow, Pitch. Goin’ somewhere? 'Cause those bags under your eyes are packed for sure….”
The Boogeyman, Lord of Fears and Terror, suave sovereign of shadows, glared at the youngster with the hollow, dark-rimmed eyes of an addict. His fashionable open-chested coat was rumpled and lint-dusted, his hair like some sort of disgruntled raven who’d been woken too early. His graceful grey hands were shaking as he dumped another tiny pink packet of sweetener into a cup of black coffee, tossing the wrapper onto a crumpled heap that was growing on the table.
“Get off my case, Frost. You’re looking jolly as a fucking elf, as usual,” he snapped.
To their left, a girl with thick, black glasses stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder to leave. The mysterious contents of her hobo bag jangled like a jailor’s keys, eliciting a terrified sideways glance from Pitch.
Hmm. Jumpy, Jack mused to himself as he scrutinized the dark guardian for the slightest shred of violence.
The two stared at each other for a while, the tink of the silver spoon against the mug their only conversation; Pitch blowed on his coffee before abandoning all pretext and gulping it noisily, making Jack wince. It must have been scalding hot. Finally he could take the awkward silence no longer.
“Ok. You didn’t summon me here just watch you slam back frappaccinos, did you? Tell me what’s wrong or I’m out of here. I have a date with the Rockettes' nipples.” Pitch didn’t answer, just stared into his coffee, as if trying to boil it with his eyes. Jack rolled his eyes and stood up.
“Later, guy,” he snorted, turning to leave.
Pitch’s eyes clouded with panic for a moment, and with a shadow’s speed, he reached out and grabbed hold of Jack’s arm desperately, anchoring the young guardian to the spot. Suddenly he started gibbering at a breakneck pace, voice high and reedy, body fairly vibrating with tension.
“Frost, listen to me. Just sit down again and listen. You’ve got to help me out here… I’m losing my bloody mind. I have no idea what to do anymore. Look at my hair. It’s a fucking mess. My nails are cracked and broken. I’m smoking now, did you know that?! Three packs a day. It’s hell on my complexion. And this damned coffee… who can drink this stuff?! But here I am, day after day. I’m coming unglued.…”
Jack’s brow furrowed and he pulled his arm back.
“Oh? Ok, cool, I get it. You threaten our lives and the very fabric of our existence, but you pick up a bad habit and we’re supposed to stage an intervention for you?! Gimme a break, Pitch. Go home. It’s none of our business how you want to ruin your life.”
“It is your business! It's your bloody Sandman!!” The lights in the shop dimmed and flickered ominously, several steaming hot mugs of coffee shattered, soaking many a skinny jean-clad lap. The shop itself shook and rumbled as startled screams piped up, terror rippling through the shop like a shock wave. Fortunately, the tremor subsided, and people shakily restored their laptops to order and went to replace their expensive drinks.
Jack goggled at Pitch’s outburst, eyes wide like plates. He put both hands up in a placating manner and slid back down in the chair. “Ok, ok, relax, Dark Night. Let’s… start again, shall we? So Sandman, our Sandy? Golden Slumbers? Sleepyhead? Pillowpastry? Guy who doesn’t say much?”
He paused while Pitch nodded imperceptibly. Jack puffed out his cheeks.
“Well, hate to break it to you but we haven’t seen him in weeks. Tooth keeps insisting he’s probably catching up on people’s lost sleep or something, but to be honest, he’s a busy little guy. None of us are that surprised to go weeks without a peep or grain of sand….”
Pitch laughed - a bitter sarcastic bark of a laugh. “Oh, he’s busy alright, busy harassing me. I haven’t had a night’s peace in ages. I want you to call him off.”
“What do I look like, his trainer?! Sandman works in mysterious ways. And really? If he’s not letting you be, you deserve it. We might have a truce for the time being, but you deserve everything you get from him and more.”
Pitch huffed, waving off Jack’s words. “Pfft, like you’d expect anything less?! I’m the Boogeyman, Frost, not the Candyman. Stop acting so butt-hurt about the whole ‘taking over your lives thing.’ ...But really how was I to know corrupting his dreamsand would have such an awful, insidious side effect?! I wouldn’t have bothered! Do you know, I tried to sit down with a nice cup of tea and the Reader’s Digest last week…just popped my feet up and drifted off, and he was there. In my dream-” Pitch’s face crumpled "-in his jammies-” he buried his face in his hands "-with his whip.”
Jack crossed his arms over his chest. “Pitch! You stole the guy’s sand, turned all his hard work into nightmares, and imprisoned him in your dark realm of fear and hate. I’d be pretty peeved too, you know. No wonder he’s pissed off.”
Pitch gave him a strange look, as if he had spoken in Swahili. “No, listen to me. Really listen and shut your big mouth. He’s not attacking me... well, not in the traditional sense....”
“So he’s attacking you in the non-traditional sense? Verbal abuse? Is he toilet papering your house? ‘Cause I’m having a hard time imagining this….”
“No damnit stop interrupting... he’s... he’s....” Pitch’s eyes darted to and fro, and he sank down lower into his chair. “He’s... making advances.”
“Hey, Pitch, how did you order this coffee? Everyone in this shop is an adult, they can’t see us…”
“What? Oh, that redhead over there in the corner. She ordered us a round. She says she’s seen the movie three times- I don’t fucking know… stop changing the subject!!”
“Fine, fine, what about advancing?”
“Advances! He just keeps showing up in my dreams like he owns the damned place! I have been in hiding. But it doesn’t matter - any continent, any city, my shadow realm - but it doesn’t matter! If I fall asleep, he finds me! I keep waking up in a cold sweat - he makes me do things, Jack....”
Finally, Jack seemed to understand. He took a little nibble of his brownie, then a sip of the cocoa. Then he looked up at Pitch and exploded into laughter.
“Dude, are you serious?! Way to go, Sandy! Well I mean like, gross taste in men but whatever, love is blind, amirite?You must be one heck of a lady, Pitch. This is so cute. Baby’s first stalker. So did he leave you roses? Are they red?”
“Shut up, Frost. This is serious. And they of course they were red. So I am asking you, as a friend - or something approximating that - you have to help me! You don’t know what its like to wake up with sand in your unmentionables, to feel like a piece of meat, some sort of… beautiful onyx object to covet,” Pitch squirmed and tugged his coat closed demurely.
Jack continued to giggle, attempting to regain composure.
“So, saying that I didn't think this was highly hilarious and actually wanted to help. What do you expect me to do about it?”
Pitch flustered, gesticulating wildly. “I don’t know! Find him a distraction! He can take up needlepoint or interpretive dance or those ridiculous sand mandalas, I don’t care! Oh! set him up with someone else!! What about your asshole friends?! What about the Bunny?”
“Bunny’s not into so much junk in the trunk.”
“North!?”
“Wrong sex.”
“Tooth?!”
“Also wrong sex.”
“Lingerie, Jack. Lingerie. I once dreamed I was on a beach wearing nothing but an inflatable inner tube. You have no idea how far his roly poly depravity goes! Last Tuesday, I had a dream where I was reading this awful magazine, something called Cosmo, …and I was having a bubble bath. Eurgh! The magazine had an article about ‘spooning’…. I don't want to do anything named after cutlery, and especially not with Sandman!”
Pitch sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, digging in his coat for a packet of Marlboros. “Do you have a light?”
“Pitch. Stop and think about that for a second.”
“God, you’re useless. So, you aren’t going to help me. What if I told you I could guarantee you riches beyond your wildest dreams?”
“Your misery is riches enough.”
“Cheeky bastard. I’m going out on a limb here, Frost. Just. I don’t know. He’s blowing up my cell phone, he’s leaving me love letters - I'm being stalked by a flying cream puff, and you don't give a frozen fuck!”
Jack’s laughter bubbled up again, shaking his body till tears sprang up in his clear baby blues. “Pitch, dude. Seriously. I feel for you, because I know, Sandy can be a persuasive guy but really. Just lighten up. So Sandman has the hots for you. could be worse…he has a very attractive nose.”
Pitch’s lip curled into a feral snarl, exposing his pointed ivory teeth. He stood to his full height, drawing up the bile of terror and shadows around him like a swarm of black hornets. Light bulbs exploded, shrieks emanated from the dark. Jack took a step backwards, his heart racing. So this was it. The whole silly conversation was just a ruse; now the Boogeyman would unleash his chaotic flood, drowning everything around him in darkness, and he had stupidly fallen into the trap. For a moment, Jack Frost was indeed afraid.
“You think this is funny! I didn’t bring you here to mock me. I’m actually trying to help you.... If you won’t remove him, then you’ll have to suffer the consequences. You would abandon your precious friend to my devices? Look at me, Jack.” Pitch grabbed Jack’s shoulder violently, his grip like the talons of a bird of prey, pulling him close, his breath smelling of anise flowers and blood.
“Do you doubt for one second that I would not kill him?! Crush his crumbling heart, shatter that glittering skull?! I will extinguish him, boy! I will strangle....”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What you do with Sandy behind closed doors is none of my business. Besides, how can you crush such a cute widdle face?”
Pitch snarled and raised his hand to strike, then caught the glimmer of gold out of the corner of his eye. The color (or lack thereof) drained from his face, and in a spidery flail of arms and legs, he dove under the table.
Still shaking, Jack pressed against the window, mesmerized for a moment by the lazy serpentine spirals of gold that floated on invisible dreamwinds. He grinned and tapped on the glass with his staff. High above the city lights, the pudgy floating form of the Sandman paused and glanced downwards. He glided languidly to the coffee shop window, his face lighting up with recognition upon seeing his friend. Jack smiled warmly, helping the little guardian through the window.
“Hey, Mansnoozie, long time no see…. How’s it hanging? Actually, no. Don’t answer that. I’ve been having a nice chat with someone. He’s probably dying to see you, actually, so you know what? I’m not gonna keep you two….”
He grinned and winked, sitting back in his chair and casting an exaggerated look downwards. Sandy blinked his sleepy, half-lidded eyes and cocked his head to the side, a little glimmering question mark appearing over his head. Jack pointed under the table, his grin continued to play havoc with his frosty face. Sandy cast him a second dubious glance, and slowly turned upside down, little feet crossing primly. He peeked under the table, then disappeared.
“No! No! How did you find me?! You don’t scare me! I’ve had seven espressos! Stay away! Auuugh!!!”
The table bumped and lurched, there was a strangled cry, the scuffling of bootied feet, then a dash of sand scattered across the dirty linoleum, settling into the cracks like gold dust. Suddenly, Sandy’s head popped up over the edge of the table, wearing a wide, triumphant grin. His little arms were wrapped tightly around the head and shoulders of a comatose Pitch, hauling him like a sack of potatoes. Pitch’s face was buried into Sandy’s pajamas, mouth agape, drooling slightly.
“Nice catch, Sandman,” Jack laughed. “I think this is gonna get really weird really fast so… I’m out. Later, Sandy. Sweet dreams!”
Sandy’s waved sleepily, his grin widened lasciviously, his nose wrinkled up and the corners of his eyes twinkled in an almost predatory way.
****
His dreams are lit by candle light.
He is dressed in head to toe in silk. The dressing gown is a present; it is soft like gossamer, with tiny golden threads just barely holding it together. The plunging neckline is rimmed with gorgeous plush mink. It pours down his lithe form and pools at his feet, black as a starless night. As he walks, it whispers like a lover, soft and low. The dressing gown parts coyly over his legs when he moves, revealing the citrine spangled nylons that wrap his legs, from his graceful gazelle’s thighs to his shapely calves. Delicately, he sips bubbling golden champagne, and makes his way to a cush moon-colored chaise lounge. As he sits, he looks up through his heavy dark lashes, a smile tickling faintly at the corners of his blackberry dark lips.
“Sandy, draw me like one of your French girls….”