Chapter Text
Jack has a nightmare like none other and wakes nearly in tears, mainly for the reason that some years ago, it would have been a sweetly satisfying, comforting dream. In it, Pitch crept into his room, spanning the anxious shadows crusted stiffly to the walls. Warmth built in the stagnant air and Jack sidled from beneath the dark satin sheets, splaying his limbs to a welcoming heat, sweat slowly lining his bare white thighs. Pitch swept over him like smoke, only the faintest traces of nervous hands on his cheeks, reverently stroking the rosy flesh and solidifying by the second.
“Pitch,” Jack rasped, and Pitch made a face like he’d shot him, shocked and rigid, before lowering himself with careful breaths, casting his black form over the body offered. Jack’s arms were stranded above his head and Pitch drove shadows up the muscle, sliding in covetous embrace around his wrists and circling the forearm in constrictive spirals. Jack arched into the rare touch, body sore and thin from his isolation; the dissipating belief in his lore. Shallow panting warmed his lips as Pitch descended, the nervous shudder of his arms quaking against Jack’s pale ribs. His disbelief was heartbreaking, but at last he touched Jack’s lips with his own and at the parting invitation instantly folded around him, mashing himself into the kiss and groaning in misery.
He pressed down hungrily, devouring everything Jack would give him, shadows twining ecstatically around their forms as he stirred and hesitantly began returning the affections, deepening the kiss and widening his legs hopefully. Pitch swirled in between them, too frightened and overwhelmed to maintain corporeality, slipping impatiently over his flesh and blending through it. His groans became desperate as he pulled away, unable to sustain himself long enough for a simple kiss. Jack smiled and kissed him softly on his cheek, lightly enough that the translucent barrier of shadow swept away with his lips, smudging him with darkness, and Pitch was grateful and lonely and showing everything in him that Jack had sowed, each emotion he’d steadfastly ignored, and the inevitable terror that accompanied the revelation left his limbs weak and shaking.
“It’s okay,” Jack whispered, closing his legs with a snort at Pitch’s brokenhearted expression. “We can try again later.”
And he hoped.
-
He’d successfully avoided Jack’s dreams for years, now, and there was no reason to go delving in just now that they’d reunited. It was not worth all the dreamsand on Earth to see what brought that gleam to Jack’s eyes. Pitch is still unsure of how to act around him. The voices grow and wither in his presence, vying for dominance, forming factions based on torture, straining his voice and bringing noticeable tension to his form. Shadows stop writhing and sharpen, meaning to nick him but only passing uselessly through his body. The balance of form has shifted, and now they have physical being. Perhaps it’s for the better, since Pitch is uncomfortably at odds with himself around Jack, and infuriatingly unsure of what he wants, although instinct shouts more clearly, more frantically at him every time he visits Jack’s makeshift room.
Arousal is not something he’s felt in years, and he’s certain Jack would have none of it; likely leave if he found out. Fortunately, the boy is wearing more than the shift he’d donned at Santoffclaussen. It would be wonderfully simple to have just pulled the tie, and watch that marvelous body reveal itself.
Not entirely consciously, Pitch initiates a vacillating courting period, during which he both avoids Jack for days and leaves gifts for him similar to the ones he’d given during his pregnancy. Sweets, phials of pure dreamsand to help him sleep, candles, recorded shadow puppets that would play for him when he was bored, and the occasional pillow, which he made sure to steal from very nice homes on the surface, and never defile the still nest in the belly of the caverns.
Though, in avoiding Jack, he increasingly spends his time there.
And Jack, it’s obvious, is becoming lonely, and eager to leave or at least start talking to him, to gauge what they have left and see if any of it is worth salvaging. Pitch involuntarily hopes. When he receives the candles, he keeps them in stock by his bed, but tries not to light them too often, thinking they’ll ward off Pitch like a nightlight (which have never worked). The sweets make him drool as North’s never had, and while Pitch unconsciously puffs up at the thought of being superior to another, Jack greedily devours the candies and fruits, wiping his mouth happily, the sad silver gleam in his eyes fading for a moment or two.
The dreamsand is used more than Pitch would like, since Jack appears to enjoy sleeping more than anything, and phial after phial disappears, like bottles of morphine. Pillows have an odd meaning between them, and were too private a gift, Pitch thought, at this stage, and he was nearly tearing his hair out, (if he could only get a physical grip on himself) when Jack finally stopped staring at it, grabbed a nearly-empty phial, and cuddled the pillow as he immediately passed out. The sight punches the air out of him. He stands over the bed for several hours, trying to come to terms with himself, get a grip on his hope and calculate what to do next, but nothing can move him, not any of the thousands of voices screaming at him to take scythe in hand and snuff Jack out. Not even when Jack wakes, eyeing him warily and instantly alert, grains of sleep heavily crusting his eyes, is he swayed into action.
Jack slowly rises, the slick sheets falling around him, revealing the tempting curves of his milky legs. His lips are dry and Pitch inwardly snaps at himself to break the spell.
“I need to see it.” He blinks, brow furrowing slightly, Jack’s posture straightening as he shakes off sleep. Words register sluggishly, his brain grinding ruthlessly against remembrance, and he looks toward the burnt-out candle, melted to the base.
He wants to refuse, but yearns for company in his knowledge and sorrow. Offering a gentlemanly hand, he winces when Jack accepts him, and draws the boy off the bed.
Shadows fold into a portal of stairs and they descend quietly, Jack a few steps behind, Pitch eager to look back and see the fear on his face. Via the shadows, he can feel the lines of worry and determination, and cradles Jack worshipfully through the miasma. Colder and colder, the stairs lead finally to the stone arch, a thin veil of fog gently rolling across the floor, disturbed into soundless waves by their steps. Jack grimaces at the spot where the mirror once stood, breezing past it with a hard stare into Pitch’s shoulder blades, ahead of him. Control begins to fail him as they near their old bedroom, and his breaths deepen, eyes blinking more quickly to stifle his weakness, but his heart is steely and he must do this.
Pitch glances behind him,
“There’s not much to see,” he tries in a passive tone, begging for Jack to continue and at once having no desire to visit the grave. Jack is stony, the darkness under his eyes grim. They continue.
The bedchamber is freezing, pillows untouched, the blankets tossed exactly as Jack had left them when Bunny had come. He stares after it with confused emotions, hand rigid in Pitch’s hold as he’s led into another patch of darkness. Nightmares tread the ceiling, glaring down at them with glinting yellow eyes.
“Stars,” Jack murmurs, and Pitch’s shoulders stiffen. They wind around a massive stone column, reaching a granite balustrade looming over a great abyss. Stray beams of light stream into the drop-off, choked by passing nightmares swerving along a deep black tide. Staring into it gives Jack a headache. He’s sure he can make out faces in the bleak, but they swallow each other and redouble. More distressing, the darkness seems to tug along beside the two of them, and he swears for a second he can make out teeth, but the glimmer might also be sand, and the room is too vast to sanely search.
Once they pass another arch into a chamber, Jack stumbles at a sudden release of pressure. He hadn’t noticed the weight around his neck or the tiny myriad scratches on his ankles, hadn’t felt them at all. He huffs a few generous breaths and rubs the sore bruise on his throat. Pitch makes to pause, but Jack recovers quickly, and he hurries forward again, avoiding an explanation.
While the rest of the cavern rumbles with underground rivers, and hisses with whatever Pitch has down here, this area is entirely silent, and rightfully eerie. Jack’s hackles go up and he clenches the hand in front of him, grimacing at the stiffness in it. Pitch was supposed to be heated; chaotic, always moving. Jack was the cold one, the dead one. He doesn’t like the change but focuses on it because if he doesn’t keep his mind occupied, he’ll start thinking about where they’re going. He’s not even sure why he suggested it; in no way does he feel ready.
Hours seem to pass as they walk along this corridor. It has no visible ceiling, and the massive pillars around them are of all different cultures. He spies Egyptian hieroglyphs and Nordic runes, and small black things scurrying up the sides.
Pitch’s breathing changes as they come upon a large gate. It’s too dim, this far back, for Jack to discern its make, but he gropes curiously at the freezing façade and discovers tiny, intricate carvings, varying textures smooth and not, and a long bar holding it shut. He finally registers that Pitch has stopped for a reason, and that the change of pace in his breaths is measured, careful. His hand retracts immediately, scalded by fear as the gate’s meaning hits him. A small part of him wants to make a crack about cemetery gates, about how Pitch’s best efforts in horror are always campy, but all his blood has pooled in the scratches on his feet, and he’s hypersensitive to the grind of metal as Pitch slowly opens the gate.
They face a massive wall of ice, ethereal blue and dimly illuminated by the light of a deep crevasse on the other side. The chamber cannot be seen from it. A soft blue glow bathes the smooth white stone of the chamber floor, fine lines between the bricks angling in long spokes toward the centre. Jack’s body is in rigor, the lines drawing his sight toward a circle of stone, the surface enamelled in brilliant stars of all colours, streaked with gold and stardust. His breathing escalates as a hand softly touches his lower back, unsure but inflexible, soundlessly urging him forward. A pained grunt leaves him as they begin walking toward the circle, and the patterns become more detailed, more fantastical. Pieces of tile, cut glass, and polished gems no larger than his finger garnish the lid of the tomb, a small lip of polished marble standing an inch above all sides. His heart sinks through his belly and he panics for a moment that he might not be able to walk. Three years of hope, ten of ashes. The stardust shuffles along the gold, causing the tiles to shimmer, and only when that catches his eye does he realize that the configuration is turning, the stars slowly following a smooth orbit.
He wants to say it’s beautiful, and for some reason to tell Pitch he’s sorry, but the thought of what lies beneath it freezes him on the spot.
“Jack,” Pitch calls softly, squeezing his hand and urging from him some of the tenderness they’d lost. Jack covers his mouth and starts crying, breathing heavily through his palm but stifling it bravely. It does him no good, and the sobs grow, shaking his back until his knees waver and Pitch gently leads him to the floor.
Everything is buried here. Everything between them; their child, their life, and things only Jack can see; Jamie, his role as a Guardian. It all whirls together and Jack frees his pain only to see it echoed. Beside him, Pitch’s eyes are red and staring holes into the wall of ice before them. The lids are wet, but his lips don’t even quiver. Jack catches his attention and he grows bold, thumbing a tear from his cheek and brushing back crudely-cut hair. Words die in his mouth, but it remains open as if locked around them.
Touching more than he had in the past ten years, Jack brushes his cheek and stiffens when Pitch instantly leans into it, eyes shutting gratefully as his breath shudders out. Losing strength, Pitch slides down further and Jack widens his hold, hesitant hands hugging Pitch close as he crumples uselessly into his lap.
Though Jack never hears a thing, he is overcome by a vicious, dreamy déjà-vu, racked by the shiver of Pitch’s back against him, and lets him go for as long as he needs. Jack’s own emotions seem to have dried up. They’d ruled him for so long and left his life barren. He accepts Pitch’s weakness as his own, and their closeness puts energy and care in his motions that he hasn’t possessed in years. Pitch’s back stops after long, and a hand creeps up to grip Jack’s shirt. Pitch has sprawled comfortably in his lap, but now rises to his knees, eyes bloodshot and desperate. He holds his grip at the neck of Jack’s sweater, pulling it down just slightly, steadied by Jack’s own hands soon cradling it.
“… please…” he whispers hoarsely, but never makes a request. Jack’s discomfort grows and that seems to wake Pitch. He looks down at the shapes and colours moving freely of their dolour and his composure returns, although there remains in his eyes a distinct red tint. The tense curl of his back relaxes into stately posture, and his gaze drifts back to the tomb. He’s still holding Jack’s hand, and the hot sweat almost stings, but Jack doesn’t refuse him. The whiteness of Pitch’s knuckles makes them tremble, and though his figure is still and sombre, Jack can tell that all of his anger and sorrow is going into that one, shaking grip.
He’s sure of what he’s denied Pitch, but uncertain of whether it was right.
After several minutes, Pitch gains the energy to stand, hoisting Jack up with him almost as an afterthought.
“I’ll take you back to your room,” he says distantly, without facing the boy. Jack’s shoulders go rigid, like he’s about to say something important, and Pitch readily gives him his full attention. When he says nothing, Pitch turns away with perfect composure, as though he hadn’t expected Jack to have the courage.
Leaving the room is harder than he thought. The crystal stars move independently, unaware of his existence, continuing their slow climb and descent, whirling around the tomb. From this angle, the wall of ice glitters with their brilliant reflections, but doesn’t show his. Pitch is the only one who can make him feel real, at the moment, and he slides his hand more tightly around a stunned grey palm.
Jack wants to ask why they can’t use the portal back up, frightened of encountering whatever had injured him on that abysmal terrace, but he remembers the silence of the tomb, and how none of the shadows entered alongside them. Knowing first-hand how essential they are to Pitch’s nature, he unthinkingly questions it, and is answered with sharp nails struggling not to elongate, grazing his skin with supressed emotion.
“They do not respect the same boundaries that we do.” He says distractedly, and Jack is sure that they’re fighting inside him, right now.
“… they don’t like me down here, do they?” Jack continues in the first real conversation they’ve had in forever. Pitch emits an odd sound; choked and small, a little like a laugh, but covers it by clearing his dry throat, rasping quietly,
“Actually, they love it.”
Jack doesn’t know what that means, but the steely silence that follows assures him it’s not good.
To his dismay and fear, they do not avoid the open room, and that same blackness gazes into Jack’s soul. His ears buzz and he swears he can hear a scratching sound, like claws inside his skull, but searching the vastness for answers only leaves him with a terrible headache, and as soon as they exit, he finds scratches on his wrists and hands, too.
Their old room is the hardest to pass. The light fog is comforting and Jack actually stops, releasing Pitch’s hand to do it and staring intensely into the pile of pillows and blankets, still faintly smelling of their union, although Jack is sure it must be an illusion. Pitch stands a little ahead of him, waiting, when Jack makes toward the sunken bed, and he springs into a scream,
“DON’T—!”
He yanks Jack breathlessly away from the treasure, eye wet again and frustration tying his tongue. Shocked by the outburst and insulted from being denied something that for several years was his, stubbornness wins out, and Jack thrusts off Pitch’s clawing grasps, toe just touching the first step.
“I’ll break it.” Jack freezes and feels a heart-dropping pressure. Turning to see Pitch holding his staff, he pauses, pulse quickening at the thought of the pain that would naturally follow. With all the practiced diffidence of an immortal teenager, he evenly replies,
“It’s not like you haven’t done it before.” And he makes to step down, when talons dig painfully into his shoulder and effortlessly rip him back into a stone wall. Pitch tosses the staff the floor, defending the endangered nest with flaring nostrils and an inhuman grimace. Jack’s breath is knocked out of him and he can hardly believe what’s happened. He slowly regains his bearings and uses the staff to prop up his injured body. The sweater North gave him has a long, bloody tear, and the thought of it sends him into a rage.
To his credit, Pitch is able to protect the old room, directing their fight out toward the balustrade, pushing Jack with calculated force. This is his element and Jack is unstable. Jack has been unstable for ten years and every time it looks like he has a chance, something else happens. Another short tragedy. Another death. He’s tired and angry and Pitch is not helping.
The cave groans pleasurably with their fight and in his fury, Jack can finally discern crude, leering faces among the roiling shadows. Pitch pursues him mercilessly, and it would have been easy to shove him off into the dark abyss, to parry an attack and swing Jack off the stone rail, but he makes every effort to keep him safe from the teeth and glares and monstrous smirks, sending each blow back toward the wall, trying to herd Jack away from certain danger.
Jack stops fighting. He’s panting and thrumming with energy, lips bloodied and eyes wild, but he restrains himself. Pitch has never been totally upfront with him, has always had some secondary agenda that Jack couldn’t know, and even here, he can’t really get him to fight. He can’t earn one shred of honesty or respect as an equal, can’t even dream of sharing what they had before, something vaguely resembling love. A sudden urge demands that he throw the staff into the gaping cavern, but he’s sure it’s not his, and when he resists, he feels pain wherever the shadows can reach.
Pitch can see it, and he doesn’t like it.
“We’re done here,” he gasps with beastly breaths, avoiding Jack’s stare and opening a portal the shadows too happily provide. He stalks forward and Jack nearly spears him, but instead of attacking, he folds his arms in suffocating pressure around the boy’s struggling form, and falls back through the portal.
-
They appear in the forest and Jack instantly hits at him, choking at the grip and kicking with all his might until he’s freed. Pitch stumbles back, long black coat torn at the edges, the smoky black of his fingertips similar to frostbite. Jack blinks through tears and grits his teeth.
Black. Swollen. Frozen into place.
“Don’t ignore me,”
“Ready for another?”
“Clearly, this isn’t working.”
Jack jolts out of his reverie, looking up to find Pitch smoothing the frayed edges of his cloak, the high silver collar around his neck tarnished with black smudges. Jack cuddles his staff and purses his lips as Pitch grooms his robe of falling snow, brushing it off and eventually letting it fall through him altogether. Nothing cold to mar his beauty.
“Have you anything to say?” His tone isn’t harsh, but it’s unnaturally guarded. The sunken pouches beneath his eyes must have been painful to earn, and Jack understands that, but he’s still so angry.
“… I’m angry.” He says simply, not trying anymore. Pitch lifts his chin and snorts,
“You’re angry? How awful. Is there anything I can do?”
Sarcasm is another way of healing, albeit an ineffective one. Jack nods as if Pitch were taking him seriously, for once.
“Yeah, I’m angry. How do you feel?”
Pitch starts and that awful, loathing grin slides into doubt. The furious glitter of his eyes dissipates with a pained glare before evaporating into apathy. He regards Jack with what he hopes is indifference, but the grate of his voice is painful, and his stare too grave,
“I suppose I’m angry, too.”
“That’s good,” Jack tries, answered with the curious quirk of an elegant brow. “It’s good that we’re both angry, I mean. We’re on the same page. For once.”
Pitch forgets to close his mouth and stares openly before laughing, hunching slightly and covering his mouth, barking both mocking and desolate,
“And look how far we’ve come! Are you still lonely? Still weak?!” He’s trying to be mean and failing. It pains him to see that Jack is still suffering, and that, in turn, feeds into that suffering. He starts pacing in a calm, steady circle, steps floating just above the snow, stifling his manic laughter with the choked breaths of a broken rib.
“Takes one to know one.” Pitch freezes and glares, but whatever playful malice he’d intended to summon fizzles before he can fire it, and his gaze becomes vacant and cool.
“Will you go back to it all, then? Romp around with brats in the snow, lick the Guardians’ boots?”
Is that what you really want?
Jack ponders theatrically and shakes his head, inviting the same drama they’d enjoyed long ago, “I don’t think it can go back to how it was,” his voice cracks and Pitch shivers, looking for all the world like he wants to hold him, but remains chained some yards away, “but I’m going to see what I can make of this. And I’d like to see what you’ll do, too.” Pitch watches the trees, far enough from the pond that he can’t see it, but reminded by everything around them of what happened here.
“… I want to know something.”
Recognition flares hesitantly on Pitch’s face and he regards Jack from his periphery. Sweeping a hand through the growing darkness of twilight, he acquiesces,
“Go on. Ask away.”
Jack considers his question and the weight of it bears heavily, slumping his shoulders fearfully, a fear that scares Pitch and makes his heart quake, until he hardens and stands tall, and Pitch is left, in his own opinion, completely defenceless.
“I love you.”
Pitch can’t hear anything for a moment, and Jack’s in similar straits. The powerful flow of blood rushing in their ears deafens them to the calm snowy evening, but Jack does not crumple; he does not surrender to himself.
“I love you,” he says more firmly, skittish when Pitch instinctively steps back as though wounded. He continues in a stronger voice, “and I need to hear how you feel, too.”
Pitch cannot back away from this. Jack can’t sense fear, but the riotous skitter of shadows at the base of his cloak defines his conflict. Beyond that, Pitch looks terrified, like Jack has just stabbed him in the chest and tried to rip out his organs. For the longest time, Jack has been so focused on himself and his own pain, ignorant and even hateful of Pitch’s, that he hasn’t bothered to recognize that it has been their sole connection for a decade. And he abandoned Pitch, and left him to deal with corpses and leftover fear because that is what Pitch does.
Now, whether Jack is more mature, or simply exhausted, he will not keep fighting. Nor will he surrender to weakness. He is adamant in closing this chapter in his life, and he needs Pitch to tell him how it ends; if there is anything that can continue.
Pitch doesn’t respond, so Jack steps forward and he steps back hastily, chest thrumming with shallow breaths and an abundance of fear. The shadows feed on and into it, until he’s too distracted to deny them or sense anything beyond the increasing doubt that this is one of many illusions the shadows have played out for him, and Jack is lying and will leave him because Jack always leaves, and he’s never cared enough even to protect himself, let alone his mate and their child—
“Pitch.”
Jack is in front of him, hand on his gaunt grey cheek, lips violet and soft with the ghost of a smile. He knew the answer twelve years ago, he bloody knew it and there’s no reason in saying it since he’s just going to leave—
“Pitch, I love you.”
Pitch breaks with a short sigh, grips a delicate white wrist, reaching out to Jack’s face and touching it reverently. He tries to be stoic, but his voice is wrecked and he’s never been more grateful or uncertain in his eternal life,
“I love you—”
The dam bursts and before he can stop, he’s gasping and crying, eyes wide and delicate, waiting for Jack to cackle and tell him he’s lying, for the snow to whip into a blizzard and leave him stranded on the surface, vulnerable to all the wrath of the people who hate him, but Jack smiles and it’s blinding. He’s crying too, saying that he was an idiot, that he wished he’d been less selfish, and all sorts of after-the-fact hogwash, but Pitch barely hears any of it. He clenches the coarse fabric of the worn blue sweater, back bent horrendously as he hides his face thankfully in Jack’s neck. The embrace is returned and he cries harder, blissful for the pressure of loving arms and not the vile clawing of voracious shadows.
Suddenly Jack’s laughing and pleading with him to stop, and Pitch realizes he’s been saying it over and over, gripping Jack tighter, selfish, jealous of everything in the world, wanting his existence affirmed above all others.
“It’s okay, it’s okay! You’re okay,” Jack breathes through his giggles, eyes shining and the most wonderful sky-blue. Pitch moans wretchedly and kisses him, smothering his sobs to do it and coming away gasping. His hands creep into a vice around Jack’s form, wrapping almost twice over and pressing so hard he can barely breathe, but still he replies I love you, I love you, too, and Pitch bites into his neck and groans at the taste of Jack’s sweat and skin, the flare of bruises and the little fingers clenching his robe in shock and pleasure.
“Oh! Hey, ahn, not here, not… mmph, not yet. Piiitch…!” Jack wilts a little, whether from the crushing pressure or Pitch’s vicious assault on his neck, he can’t tell. He hasn’t heard that voice in ten years and it’s sweeter and hotter than he’d often imagined it.
“Pitch!” Jack shoves him away and Jack is not allowed to do that, anymore, “Pitch, ugh, just… gimme five minutes! Five minutes to say my piece and then we’ll do anything you want!”
Pitch pulls away, lips bloody in his ardour, and his eyes are criminally intense, “Anything?” he pants. Jack looks away with a fading smile and laughs awkwardly,
“Not… anything. Not yet. But… please. Just lemme talk. That’s… all I want to do, really.”
In spite of the sinking mood, Jack laughs again at Pitch’s wounded lust, the sad gleam in his eyes as he accepts defeat but never relinquishes his hold. Jack breathes with his eyes closed and when they open, they’re shining too much to be happy. Pitch whines because that is not acceptable, and makes to kiss him again, but skinny arms hold him at bay, and he’s forced in increasing fear to listen to whatever terms Jack demands with the helpless knowledge that he’ll inevitably agree to them.
“I… this isn’t over. I mean, what happened. It’s not,” his knuckles tense around Pitch’s cloak and he looks into the trees to gain his footing, “… it’s not gonna go away.” One tear spills over and Jack’s back shakes. Pitch holds him steady, ready to attack the second Jack is done.
“I just,” Pitch knows what he’s scared of, but knows that for whatever reason, to say it is to conquer it. “I don’t want to go through that… again. I don’t…” he hiccups, hanging his head and leaning back into Pitch’s enveloping arms, “I can’t do it. And I’m not… I’m not fixed, yet, and I’m sorry,” he gasps, and Pitch is still and accepting, doing his best to ignore the screeching in his head that Jack’s regret is insincere.
“I’m so sorry, Pitch!”
Pitch takes initiative and kisses Jack’s forehead, his cheeks, delving beside the fists rubbing childishly at blue eyes and kissing his nose and cheeks.
“I know you are. I’ve seen it, too. It’s alright. You’re alright, Jack.”
Jack wraps his arms over Pitch’s shoulders and sobs into his chest, on his tip-toes and slowly lifting into the air as Pitch floats them backward, kissing his face, neck, shoulders; anywhere not clothed. Jack cries at being forgiven, at being kissed, at finally getting what he’d dreamed of, and Pitch has already gone through all that and wants his own assurance, something to quiet the painful ringing in his head,
“Jack, let’s go home.”
The most Jack can do is nod at the moment, but he reaches up to grip the back of Pitch’s head, pulling him down into a wet, slow kiss. Pitch backs up toward the shadow of a towering pine, and once a portal has opened, he falls into the darkness, holding Jack tighter than the boy can return, and burrowing himself so deeply in Jack’s flesh, it hurts the both of them.
And for the first time since it all began, they go home.