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The concept of hell was something that Pitch, in his role as the Boogeyman, had thought he was intimately familiar with. It was his job, after all, to incite fear. What better way to do so than to place someone in their own personal hell.
What he'd never much turned his thoughts to was the idea of what his personal hell might be. Unfortunately for him, it appeared someone else had been giving it plenty of thought, and they seemed to have hit it right on the mark.
The room was small, but it was impossible to make out the details through the glaring, burning light aimed at him from all directions. Even the floor was made of brightly lit tiles, and the end result was an utter, unbelievable lack of shadows. Not one square inch was un-illuminated, even beneath his body. He knew, because he'd searched diligently, then desperately, all to no avail.
He still wasn't certain just how the humans had found him, let alone captured him. One moment he'd been lurking in the shadows, contemplating how best to proceed now that his most recent plan to bring down the guardians had failed; the next he'd been pinned to the spot by blinding lights. His magic had felt oddly slippery, refusing to answer his call when no shadows were within reach, and these humans, these scientists, had been very careful to ensure he remained lit at all times since.
It had been many nights since then, perhaps even weeks. It was difficult to track time in this endless sea of light. There were no meals to mark the time, only the occasional experiment they would come in to perform on him. They tried to question him, but he was determined to remain uncooperative. It was far beneath his dignity to beg for better treatment in return for good behaviour.
Assuming they would even believe such promises from him. From the questions they asked and chance comments he overheard between them, it seemed they'd thoroughly done their homework on him.
Now they'd added a new dimension to his hell. The temperature had been rising steadily for quite some time. At first he'd thought it was simply his own body succumbing to the pressure of the constant lack of shadows, but at this point the difference was too marked to be his imagination or something internal. Perhaps they assumed that 'cold' and 'dark' went logically together, and were seeing if they could torture him further to get better responses out of him.
Let them try. He did his best to sneer, certain they were watching him somehow. It would take far more than a group of puny, fact-obsessed humans to break Pitch Black. Sooner or later they would slip up, get close enough for him to read their fears, and he would be able to turn the tables. It was only a matter of time, and as an immortal, he had far more time available to him than they did.
Sure enough, it wasn't much longer before he heard the soft 'whump' the door made when it was released, the sealed environment of the room being opened to the rest of the world. A brief draft of cooler air wafted past him, and he couldn't quite stop himself from drawing it in longingly, though 'cooler' at this point was a relative term.
He squinted to try to see the door through the blinding light, thought he already knew it was futile. His eyes, built to be able to see in the most absolute darkness, couldn't handle the utter absence of it.
Instead of the sharp question or prod with a machine that he'd expected, all that happened was a louder thud a few feet to his left, and then hurried footsteps back to the door. There was a clunk as the door shut and the lock turned, and the air in the room took on the dead quality he'd learned to associate with being sealed in.
Still nothing happened for long moments. Despite knowing it was undoubtedly some kind of trap, Pitch was just starting to consider exploring the room again to see what they'd changed when a soft moan reached his ears.
His muscles tensed, though Pitch struggled not to show any outward sign of distress. They'd left someone in here with him. He was helpless and vulnerable, completely and literally out of his element, and they'd left someone in here with him. He could only hope it was one of the minor immortals, not one of the guardians.
Another groan was followed by a wracking cough, telling him that his new companion at least wasn't faring much better than he was. There was a shuffling noise, then a muffled exclamation. "Pitch?" a hoarse but vaguely familiar voice said. "Under other circumstances I'd demand to know what the hell you were up to, but... you don't look much better than I feel." Another cough. "Maybe worse, actually. Ugh, it's too HOT in here."
It was the comment about the temperature that finally let Pitch pair the voice with a remembered face. "Jack Frost," he snarled, far from happy with the discovery. "Well, that explains why they've decided to attempt to broil me. I thought they'd decided that since I was being uncooperative, they might as well get a meal out of me."
A harsh laugh met that comment. "I really wouldn't put it past them. How did they catch YOU?"
"I'd give a great deal to know the answer to that question myself," Pitch muttered. He didn't think he'd spoken loud enough to be heard, but a soft snort of amusement came from the guardian. It was closer than the laugh had been, which was just warning enough for him not to jump when he felt a hand on his arm.
"No offense, but you really look like something the dog chewed up and spat out," Jack said. "I think you actually look worse than when the nightmares were dragging you off, and that's saying something."
"Oh yes, thank you so much for making certain to rub the reminder of my recent defeat in," Pitch said, his voice dripping with patently false civility. "I'm impressed by your restraint, it took you a whole minute to bring the subject up."
"Hey, hey," Jack protested, and the hand left his arm. Pitch could imagine the boy lifting his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "I didn't mean it that way. Try not to be Bitch Black here, would you? We're in serious trouble, in case you hadn't noticed. Right now, you're the closest thing I've got to an ally."
"An ally? Have you lost your mind?" Pitch tried to stare in his direction, but the most he could make out was a vague blur of light that was touched with blue rather than the harsh yellow of the bulbs. "Last I remember, you had quite thoroughly thrown my offer of alliance back in my face, Frost."
"That was then, this is now," Jack replied. "I'm not saying I'm going to throw my lot in with you to rule the world through fear after all. I'm saying we're in the same mess and that means right now we also have the same goal; escape. As long as that remains true, we've got no reason to fuck each other over and every reason to cooperate. So. Truce?"
Truce. Pitch rolled the concept in his mind. Frost had a valid point, their goals undeniably did line up at the moment. Even so, he had no doubt that any of the other four guardians would have happily gone to their deaths rather than offer him an alliance. Despite joining with the others to defeat him, Pitch still felt that Jack was the most neutral of the guardians, as well as the newest. After a few centuries of continuing enmity between them that would likely change, but for now he seemed sincere in offering a cease fire.
The ironic part was that the boy probably would indeed do everything in his power to help Pitch escape along with himself if the opportunity came up. There was nothing compelling Pitch to do the same. He could and would use Jack's naively offered help, and given half the chance he'd leave the brat behind to suffer and count himself well rid of one guardian.
"Truce," he agreed, though he allowed himself to sound reluctant. No sense letting the boy think he'd won some kind of victory by getting his eager agreement. "I won't act against you, and we work together to escape. Once we're out of here..."
"Once we're free all bets are off," Jack said, and Pitch felt the slight movement of air as he shrugged. "Until then, we're allies. Can they hear us in here, do you know?"
"Undoubtedly," Pitch said. "I don't think they'd go to such lengths to experiment on us and not take the opportunity to catalogue every minute action we make. Likely they're watching as well."
There was a pause, and when he spoke again Jack sounded dismayed. "I thought you were just exhausted, but... you can't see a thing, can you?"
Pitch tensed again. "Why would you say that?" he snapped, struggling to focus better on the blue blur that was Frost.
"Because there's a giant mirror on one wall that I am one hundred percent certain is actually a window from their side," Jack replied dryly. "There's probably cameras scattered around recording, too. Well, that's going to make planning a pain. How long have you been here? Can you use your powers at all?"
"No," Pitch ground out, because the admission hurt but there was truly no point in dissembling. Claiming any of his powers were functioning would only cause Jack to expect him to be able to use them to help them escape. "If I could generate even the tiniest shadow, I wouldn't need the rest of my powers, I could teleport out of here."
"Yeah, I can see where that would be a problem in here," Jack sighed. There was a slithering noise, like the boy had slid down against the wall beside him. "Before you ask, I'm pretty much helpless too. Any ice I try to create will melt faster than I can make it, and the longer I'm in here, the less strength I'll even have to try."
"Lovely. So we have an alliance between two utterly helpless immortals. We can talk them to death," Pitch snorted. "I'm sure you're quite good at that, you seem to run your mouth non-stop."
"Says the guy in love with the sound of his own voice," Jack laughed. "Come on, you're the King of Fear. Shouldn't you be able to talk someone into a heart attack?"
"I'm working on it," Pitch said sourly. He wasn't willing to admit that he hadn't been able to read the fears of any of the scientists, not where they could likely hear him. He didn't know whether they were deliberately blocking him, or just not getting close enough for his weakened powers to reach. If it was the latter, he didn't want to warn them that it was something they needed to be careful of.
That set the tone for the next immeasurable stretch of time they were trapped in the room together. They spent much of it slumped in opposite corners, too drained by the lack of their elements to move. Their banter could change from light to malicious in the blink of an eye if one of them rubbed the other the wrong way, but the outbursts rarely lasted long. Neither of them had the strength to maintain any kind of real temper. Mostly the talk was underlined by a sense of desperation, as they used each other to remind themselves that they were still alive.
The scientists made a brief attempt to hold them hostage to each other's good behaviour. It didn't last long. The first time they threatened to harm Jack if Pitch didn't cooperate, Jack laughed himself into a five-minute coughing fit that demonstrated more eloquently than anything Pitch could say how futile the attempt was.
Jack's coughing continued and increased in frequency. He sounded to Pitch like someone dying of consumption, each fit ended by a long, drawn-out gasp for breath like he was trying to force the air into what little space remained in his lungs.
No, not consumption.... drowning. After so long worrying that his powers had been disabled completely, Pitch latched onto the weak thread of fear he hadn't realized until that moment was trickling into him. It was the strangling sort of fear that came of drowning that he was feeling; the desperate need for air and the burning in the lungs as they filled with something else, pulled out into excruciatingly slow motion.
"How can you be drowning in an empty room?" Pitch asked, fascinated and feeling energized by the fear. "You're an immortal, you don't even need air."
"Thanks for helping me not think about it," Jack snapped back, voice catching on another cough. "I feel like I'm melting from the inside out. I remember drowning, now, and I wish I didn't because that's exactly what this feels like."
Pitch hadn't known how the boy had been killed, but drowning made a certain amount of sense. Falling through ice, likely, considering his powers. "Actually I'd rather you continued to think about it," he said wistfully, before he could stop himself. "It's quite refreshing."
"Refreshing!" Jack somehow found the energy to reach across the space between them and punch Pitch in the arm. "If you want to draw on someone's fear, use theirs, not mine."
"If I could, I would," Pitch protested, inching further into his corner to try to get out of reach. Not that he thought Jack had the strength to try again, not as bad as he sounded. "I've been trying to read their fears since I first got here."
"See, you're going about it all wrong," Jack said, making an obvious effort to sound lighthearted. "You're so fixated on the fact that you can't read their worst fears, you've forgotten that lesser fears can work just as well. For example, since we know they're listening, let's discuss exactly what we're going to do to them when we get out of here, in full detail, and see if we can make them just a little nervous."
"Please, you're a guardian," Pitch said disdainfully. "All light and hope and joy. You wouldn't know how to exact proper revenge on someone if your life depended on it."
"You think so?" Jack's voice was still light, but there was a dark edge beneath it that Pitch had never heard before. It was a breath of frost in the oven-hot air that surrounded them, and made him shiver deliciously. "I freeze people's tongues to things because I think it's hilarious to watch them squirm, I'm not exactly a nice guy. Never heard the term 'frostbite' before? Tens of thousands of people die or lose limbs to the cold every year."
"Do tell?" Pitch prompted, sitting a little straighter. He wasn't sure if it was just the delightful venom in Jack's voice that was energizing him, or if he really was feeling the first tingles of fear from their captors. "I didn't think you had it in you, Frost."
"These aren't exactly innocent children I'm supposed to be protecting," Jack said, warming to the topic - or perhaps in his case, 'chilling' to it would be a better term. Pitch could hear the crackle of the ice in his voice. "These are a group of people who are even more dedicated to sucking the wonder and fun out of the children of the world than you are. At least you would have left them with belief in something. If these people succeed, everything magical about the world will become just one more thing for children to study in school. Dry, boring, and soul-crushing."
"And what would you do to them, then?" Pitch said, leaning towards him. "Don't stop there, it's rude to leave them hanging." Now he was almost certain he could feel a fresh influx of fear, and it wasn't coming from Jack, not any more.
"People think the cold is a merciful death. And it can be," Jack replied almost gleefully. "You lie down to sleep in the snow and you never wake up, or the icy water numbs you until you can't even feel the final pain of drowning. But it doesn't have to be kind. Frostbite is a nasty way to go. You lose feeling, sure, but you have to watch as your body slowly, slooooowly turns to blocks of ice, starting from the fingers and toes and creeping up the arms and legs. It's painful, the places at the edge of the dead zones where the flesh isn't quite frozen enough to kill the nerves yet. When it gets cold enough, the flesh will actually crack and break right off, just like a chunk of ice, did you know that? The fingers would go first, they take the most impact. Then the toes. Then the whole hand. And all that time, the cold is still creeping up, taking over the torso, freezing your internal organs one by one, shutting down your body. Every breath is like inhaling razor blades into your lungs, shards of ice tearing them apart. And then finally, when it just can't take any more, the heart shuts down and you're dragged down into slow, suffocating death."
Eyes closed, Pitch was revelling in it - both in the pleasant visuals created by Jack's icy voice, and in the rush of fear he could sense from behind the far wall. Seemingly the scientists were just a little more nervous about making certain their captives remained captives than they had been before. "Consequences," Pitch murmured, delighted. "They can be such a bitch, can't they? You paint a marvellous picture, Jack, but if you're attempting to seduce me this really is neither the time nor the place."
"You wish!" Jack barked a laugh, followed by another cough. "Unlike you, I don't get off on that sort of thing."
"Oh really? That's not how it sounded a moment ago," Pitch dared to tease.
"Well, I might just consider making an exception for these guys," Jack confirmed with grim humour. "You sound like you're feeling better, at least."
"You've managed to terrify them quite effectively," Pitch laughed. "It's a shame your morals got in the way, you know. We really would have made the most magnificent team."
"Glad one of us is having fun," Jack muttered. "It's almost enough to make me feel better, too. Almost."
The next coughing fit left him gasping for air again, and Pitch hissed as he felt the fear of the humans begin to fade in the face of the immortal's obvious inability to carry out his lurid threat. "If I could get just one scrap of shadow," Pitch raged beneath his breath. "Right now I'd actually have the strength to use it!"
"How long would you need it for?" Jack asked, and something about his tone made Pitch sit up and take notice.
"Only the briefest instant, but it must be a true shadow, not a dim spot," he replied cautiously.
"Just promise me you really will take them down," Jack said fiercely. "Promise you'll make sure nobody ever tries to mess with the immortals again, so the others will be safe. Normally I wouldn't trust you to keep your word, but this once I think self-preservation will make sure you do."
"Oh believe me Frost, you don't even need to ask for that promise," Pitch said, fervent. "I will take glorious joy in teaching these puny mortals just who they thought they could control. What are you..."
"Hunch down," Jack ordered, cutting him off. "Make yourself as small as you can, and be ready. I'm not going to be able to do this for long, and we're only going to get one chance."
Ordinarily Pitch would have argued long and hard against taking orders from a wet-behind-the-ears brat like Jack Frost. Under the circumstances, he shut his mouth and huddled as far into his corner as he could, trying not to let hope take root inside him. Not only was hope against his nature, but if Jack wasn't able to pull off whatever he was about to try, Pitch didn't want to deal with the crushing weight of disappointment.
Jack shuffled over to him and pressed up against him, hands on the wall over Pitch's head. It should have felt threatening, confining, but the weight of him was so slight Pitch thought one of his snowflakes would have been heavier. The boy was always slender and light, but now he looked downright waif-like, as if he'd lost half his mass to the tortures they'd undergone.
At about the same moment that Pitch realized he could indeed see Jack, the waft of cold air against him finally registered. Jack was creating frost, ice, layer after layer of it rushing down his arms and over his body. It was melting almost as fast as he created it, but not quite, and painfully slowly it turned into a shell covering both him and Pitch beneath him. As it grew denser the ice continued to cut off more of the light, allowing Pitch to see better and giving him strength once more.
It didn't hurt that the scientists were experiencing a strong burst of fear as they realized that their two captives were up to something. Distantly through the ice Pitch could hear the sound of an alarm ringing, and a moment later there was the sound of muffled thumping on the outside of the ice shell.
Jack was red-faced and sweating hard, breath coming in laboured gasps, but he continued to pour all his energy into the ice. The effort might well kill him, or diminish him to the point of nothingness, which was arguably a far worse fate.
"Just a little more," Pitch urged him, practically vibrating with eagerness at the feel of the darkness closing in around them. "Come on, Frost, don't you dare give up on me now!"
A pained grunt was his only answer, followed by another coughing fit that sounded like it might just suffocate the young guardian yet. It didn't matter; that last layer of ice had formed, and there was enough darkness in the space between their bodies to count as a true shadow. Laughing, Pitch grabbed at it, pulling himself inside it and revelling in the feel of the darkness around him.
At the last possible instant he reached out and grabbed Jack by the collar, yanking the boy in after him. Teleporting others through shadows was harder than moving only himself, but he told himself it was worth the extra effort for the hope that Jack would deliver on all those lovely threats he had been making.
He brought them back out into the world far underground, in a little side cavern of his demesne. They were far, far away from the nearest light source; a human would be seeing phantom colours dancing before their eyes as their pathetic brains attempted to make sense of the utter darkness. Pitch could feel the strength flooding back into him even as he stood there.
It was far enough beneath the surface that no warmth of the sun ever penetrated anywhere near, but not so deep as to brush the first edges of the heat at the center of the earth. When Pitch dumped his armful of guardian onto the cold stone floor, Jack moaned and flattened himself against it, spread-eagled over the rough surface as if to absorb as much of the cold as he could. He wasn't even conscious, Pitch realized with sardonic amusement, just moving on instinct.
For the moment, Pitch was entirely content to join him. He slid down against the cavern wall and let himself fall into a half-doze in the darkness, feeling refreshed and healthy for the first time in far too long.
It took three nights for Jack to recover enough to regain his senses. Feeling generous, Pitch attempted twice to move him somewhere more comfortable, only for the guardian to mumble a complaint and sluggishly fight to stay pressed against the cool stone. By the time Jack finally opened his eyes he was looking more like himself; pale and thin, but not like he was about to melt into nothing, and his proper full size once again.
The first indication that he'd regained consciousness was a muffled shout and a panicked burst of ice, blindingly bright in the darkness. Pitch winced away from the light, but laughed in delight at the feel of the boy's fear. "Relax, Frost, the darkness can't hurt you," he murmured, grinning when the sound of his voice made Jack jump and look around frantically. "Unless I want it to, of course."
"Pitch?" Jack replied, sounding surprised. "You actually got me out of there?"
The disbelief in his voice was clear, as was the fact that he'd fully expected to be left to die in captivity. Well, it was a fair enough assumption. Pitch had intended to do exactly that, after all. His change of heart, so to speak, had been very impulsive and he still wasn't sure if he regretted it. Jack's reaction now would determine that.
"Jack, I'm hurt," he said, mock-wounded. "We had a truce. Are you saying you would have left me behind had our positions been reversed?"
"You know, I've been debating that since the moment I offered the truce, and I'm still debating it," Jack said dryly.
He surprised Pitch into a laugh. "I suppose I appreciate your honesty. The simple truth is, you owe me now. How could I pass that up?"
"Who owes who?" Jack hooted with laughter. "I nearly killed myself to give you a chance to escape."
"True, true," Pitch acknowledged. "I tell you what, then. Let's say I help you make certain the rest of the guardians are safe from marauding scientists, you fulfill all those tantalizing threats you were making back there, and we walk away and call it even?"
The grin that spread over Jack's face might have given the rest of his guardian friends a fit if they could see it. "Sounds like fun. I won't tell if you don't."
Not bring up Jack cooperating with him to slaughter a bunch of humans as blackmail material later? Unlikely. But if Jack chose to revert to naivety, Pitch wasn't responsible for telling him he was being an idiot. "Do I look like the type to kiss and tell, Frost? Your secret is safe with me."
"What the hell, if the guardians can't handle me the way I am, the Man in the Moon shouldn't have chosen me," Jack laughed. "Let's go teach some humans to respect the magic in the world. Lead the way, Pitch!"
"My pleasure," Pitch fairly purred, and took Jack's arm to teleport him out of the caverns. The humans wouldn't know what hit them. The guardians wouldn't, either. Maybe Jack Frost wasn't as much of a lost cause as he'd thought.