Klaus grinned and laughed, his whole body trembling with the poisonous terror that spread throughout his being. He let out a shaky breath, blinking through the fear, and decided to respond with his usual amount of sass and humour. “A-A human’s lips are a good few inches l-lower than that.”
Klaus had been tormented and tortured by nightmares, phobias, and pain all of his life. He wasn’t immune to Pitch’s power, but he had a better resistance to it. “I-I might be blindfolded, that doesn’t mean I can’t feel that you kissed over the blindf-fold.” He grinned, tears of uncontrollable dread soaking the fabric that covered his eyes.
Bridges And Tunnels [RotG FanFic Work In Progress]
[Unbeta’d excerpt from Chapter 7 of A CITIZEN OF THE UNIVERSE AND A GENTLEMAN TO BOOT. Feedback welcome.]
Jamie and Emily between them managed to get the unconscious Pitch wrapped securely in the oversized blanket, while Jack stood with folded arms wrapped tightly around his staff. The scowl on his face would have soured milk. After a few minutes of watching them try to lift the flopping form, Jack shook his head in exasperation and snapped, "You two are going to get yourselves arrested for bodysnatching."
Jamie snapped back, "He's a lot heavier than he looks!" Then a confused expression crept over his face. "Why is he so heavy?"
"Can't tell you, kiddo. Spirit stuff. Secret society rules and all that."
It was the human teenager's turn to scowl. "Not the time or the place, Jack," he said, sounding an awful lot like his mother at the moment.
"Sorry," said Jack in reply, not sounding terribly sorry. "Seriously, guys. If I carry him, we'll both be the nearest thing to invisible. You two will just look weird lugging a bulky blanket out of your car. Let me take him... I assume we're going back to the house, Em?"
Emily looked warily up at Jack. "I can't think why not."
"I can think of ten reasons why not. And North and Tooth could give you a thousand reasons why not. And Cottontail's gonna blow his top."
The sharp-winged butterflies of dreamsand and ice still circled Pitch's head. Staving off Emily's next question, Jack said, "Sandy gave him quite a wallop; he's gonna be out for the count for a couple of days."
"DAYS??!!"
"Days."
Jack lifted the Boogeyman, blanket and all, into his arms with seeming ease and slung him ungracefully over his shoulder. "Meet you back home, guys. I'll sneak in the back and put Mr. Sleeping Beauty here in the hall closet for now, while you guys sort out what to tell Sophie."
Jamie and Emily looked at one another, dismayed. They'd forgotten about Sophie.
====================
Fortunately, Sandy seemed to have had some foresight and made arrangements of his own while Emily had been fetching the car, because Sophie was sound asleep upstairs when Jamie and Emily got in.
They both walked into the living room to find a six-foot-one humanoid lagomorph and a five-foot-five frost being angrily hissing at one another.
"Ya gumby, do you have any idea what you've done?"
"What **I've** done? Don't pin this one on me. I'm the innocent bystander here."
Chapter 10 of A CITIZEN OF THE UNIVERSE AND A GENTLEMEN TO BOOT.
Link to AO3 here.
Emily found herself grateful, for the first time ever, that her ex-husband had built what he called his "mancave" in their attic, back in the twilight days of her marriage.
Jack had never even been tempted to explore up there, after an offhand comment from Jamie several years ago that it made his mom sad.
Now he found himself in a long narrow space with surprisingly ample headroom despite the angled ceiling. It was partitioned off into three rooms, all in a row. The front was empty; the middle room was full of cartons and boxes and trunks... the usual things you would expect in an attic. Emily led the way to the room in the very back of the attic, hesitated as though steeling herself, and pulled out a set of keys.
"This is the only place I could think of," she said apologetically as she opened the door. "I'm certainly not going to kick you out of your room, or the other kids out of theirs... not for someone who tried to take over the world." She flicked a switch on the wall.
Jack expected to see the normal yellow glow of an incandescent bulb, or the white glare of a fluorescent one, the way there was in most attics. Instead, the room was illuminated, just barely, by the purplish-blue of three rows of blacklights fastened to the rafters. He had excellent night vision, and was able to glimpse a three-seater couch with two endtables, a wooden desk with a rolling chair, an artist's easel and stool, and two tall bookshelves, both empty.
Emily moved into the room with ease and turned on a small reading lamp on one of the endtables. She commented, "The couch turns into a bed, and if we put sheets on, it should work for a temporary stay..."
There was no dust on any of the surfaces, no dustbunnies on the floor, nothing other than the sloping eaves to indicate this wasn't just another room in the house, maintained with as much care as any of the rooms downstairs.
Jack easily put two and two together... this must have belonged to the kids' father, the deadbeat dad who never came up in conversation. He resisted the urge to fly over and give Emily a hug, and simply replied, "Sure thing. We can call it the Boogeyman Hideaway Suite."
Emily snatched a pillow off the couch and threw it at him, laughing.
====================
On Saturday nights, the Bennett / Frost family usually watched "classic" DOCTOR WHO serials between broadcast seasons of the new series. Since Christmas and "The Return Of Doctor Mysterio", they'd been cycling through the Third Doctor era, which was both Emily's and Jack's favourite.
As luck would have it, however, tonight's story was "The Mind Of Evil", and at least three of the four of them felt it hit a little too close to home, considering who their houseguest was.
After the second death-by-fear-made-manifest, Emily noticed how distracted her children were and hit the pause button. "Guys, I know I said I wanted us all to have a normal day today, but I can tell it's not working. Jack, can you find Sandy and bring him here, please, before it gets too late in the evening?"
"Sure thing, Emmy."
"I'm going to get in touch with Aster, as well. I got the feeling he knows more than he wanted to let on last night."
She could see Jamie visibly relax, and Sophie clapped her hands in glee. Jamie said, "Bunny can translate faster for Sandy than we can, anyway."
"I'm on it!" Jack grabbed his staff and headed for the door.
Less than twenty minutes later, Sandy was perched on an end table and Aster seated next to him on the couch, both holding steaming cups of green tea that Aster had brewed in Emily's kitchen. Both spirits had refused coffee, Sandy with a slightly horrified expression that he quickly turned into a smile, Aster laughing that it had strange effects on the Sandman, and Sandy crafting a sand-sign for a rubber ball bouncing off the walls. That broke the tension nicely.
The little golden man waited until everyone was quiet, looked at Bunny, who said, "Ready, when you are Sandy", and seemed to sigh. Then he started pulling swirling sand-streams seemingly from his sleeves and began to shape them into a larger panorama than any of them had ever seen him use.
First came a long expanse of sand that gradually took form as a tunnel or a culvert. Then a faint tracery of vines snaked their way onto the walls, and finally two figures appeared... one recognizable as Pitch, the other at some distance from him appearing to be a boy in his very early teens, barely out of grade school.
The boy was seated with his back to the wall, a sketchbook open on his lap, a pencil flying over the pages. While he drew, he seemed to be keeping up a steady stream of conversation. The sand figures were so real that Emily expected to hear what the boy was saying.
She also noticed the Pitch-figure said not a word in reply, but merely leaned forward with an attentive air.
Jamie and Sophie seemed to be following along just fine with this more elaborate style of Sandy's, and were transfixed. Jack interjected, "Hey, Sandy, were you following Pitch? I hadn't been hearing about kids having more nightmares than they normally do." Bunny shot him a look and started to say something, then seemed to change his mind.
The Sandman shook his head and created a small version of himself behind the boy in the dream panorama, then crafted a thin stream of dreamsand connecting the boy's head and his own. Bunny said, "Sandy got pulled in by the kid's daydreams. In the right circumstances, they're as powerful a force as Belief is."
Sandy nodded, and he continued to form sand shapes. Two new figures were added to the scene, older and bigger boys than the boy with the sketchpad. Their body language seemed hostile to Emily, and she found herself clasping her hands tightly in front of her.
Pitch - the dreamsand version of Pitch - also seemed to pick up on the older boys' hostility. He uncrossed the arms that had been folded across his chest, his hands curved into claws, and shadows started to spread up the wall behind him, making him seem immensely tall.
He did not, however, step forward, as Emily would have expected, to feed on the fear that was definitely filling the scene.
The Sandman suddenly made his panorama motionless and tilted his head quizzically at the Easter Bunny.
Jack practically fell off the top of the bookcase where he'd been perched. "Awwww, man, why'd you hit pause?"
Aster stood up and walked over to lean against the bookcase next to Jack. "Because this is where we're going to need to be the translators, Jackie-boy. You and I can enter Sandy's dreamscape fully and hear everything that went down, but the rest of these guys--" he indicated Emily, Sophie and Jamie, "your human family - they can't without our guidance."
Jack looked startled, but excited. "Cool. Learn something new every day with you guys. What should I do?"
Bunny corrected him. "What WE'RE going to do is make a circuit between all of us and the dreamsand."
"Ooooh, like a Guardian seance. Eeny meeny chili beeny, the spirits are about to speak!" Jack hopped down from his perch and held his hand out to Jamie, and his younger brother took it without hesitation. Sophie grabbed Jamie's other hand and claimed one of Aster's paws for her own. Aster smiled down at her and then looked over at Emily. He smiled reassuringly and held out his other paw, as though getting ready to lead her out on a dance floor.
Emily was understandably quite nervous, but she had come to see and believe in so many extraordinary things since Easter 2012. She pasted an answering smile on her face and hoped her voice didn't shake. "I'm in. Let's do this thing." She grabbed Aster's paw in one hand and reached out to the Sandman with the other.
Bunny cocked his ears in the direction of the golden dreamweaver. "Take it away, maestro."
Sandman sighed and waved his hand. Three things happened at once... a snake of dreamsand coiled itself around Emily' wrist, the panorama resumed its motion, and a sudden burst of sound made them all aware of the scene playing out in front of them.
《"Picked a bad place to hide, dumbass." 》
《One of the older boys gets in the face of the young artist and hisses, "You're dead, do you hear me?" The other boy says, "You better run, rat! We're gonna beat your ass!" 》
《The artist-boy's slight frame is shaking from head to toe as he says, "Just leave me alone, guys."》
《Unseen by either of the two bullies, Pitch looms behind them, teeth bared in a ferocious grin. He makes eye contact with and nods at the boy with the sketchpad, who seems to visibly relax at the sight of the Boogeyman. Pitch seems to not yet have caught sight of the Sandman.》
《One of the bullies jeers, "Hiding in the dark... that's what rats do."》
《The beleaguered artist makes one more attempt to reason with them. "Leave me alone, or ---"》
《"Or what? I know it was you that got me busted, you little freak."》
《The other bully says, "C'mon, kick his ass. It's getting late, and... why the hell is it getting darker?"》
《 "Something touched my leg!"》
《"It's probably just a bug or something. Tough it out." 》
《"Dude, what is this?" The bully's voice grows more terrified. "What the hell is this?" 》
《"▪▪■■What's the matter, little creatures? AFRAID of the dark? Oh, you should be. And your fear tastes DIVINE .■■▪▪"》
《Pitch suddenly appears in front of the older boys, side by side with their target, and the bullies scream. "▪▪■■I'm gratified that you recognize me.■■▪▪"》
《Nightmares leap into being from the pools of shadow at Pitch's feet, rearing and neighing. The boys turn in terror from one side to the other, with nowhere to flee to. Their victim stands his ground, almost smiling now at the circling horses, Pitch at his side...》
《And the vines on the walls and floor of the tunnel spring in to hideous action, shooting forth in long tendrils, enveloping the now-groaning bullies in green and brown coils, covering the boys' arms and faces. The young thugs are soon buried in vines, stock-still.》
《But the vines do not stop there. They snake faster than should have been possible towards the Nightmares, which start decaying into skeleton horses and then explode into black sand after the tendrils wrap around their necks and feet.》
《And then the vines seize Pitch, who roars in pain. They cannot seem to get a grip in him as he twists and writhes away from them, but they lash at him and shred his robes. Where they touch skin, they leave long streaks of greenish-grey.》
《Sandy moves then, seemingly shaking off paralysis. His glow becomes far stronger. In the almost white-hot radiance, the vines crumble into dust, and Pitch turns around to get away, both from the light and from the boy who'd seemingly turned from ally to enemy. The tormented boy runs frantically away down the culvert and outside to a forested foot path, disappearing into the distance. The Sandman launches himself at Pitch's back and lands on his shoulders just as the Boogeyman phases into shadow...》
And Emily felt herself yanked out of the dreamstate.
Aster dropped her hand and Sophie's, and turned to walk across the room. Sophie and Jamie moved nearer to one another; Sandy curled in on himself in midair, as though to make himself disappear. Jack flew to Sandy's side and rubbed circles into his back.
The tall rabbit's shoulders slumped. "I had my part to play in this. Some of this is my fault. I mean, I wasn't there last night, but I feel like I set this up."
Suddenly Bunny folded into himself, crouching on his haunches and burying his face in his paws. An awful keening tore from his throat, horrifying everyone in the room. "I GOT THOSE KIDS KILLED!!!"
Sophie rushed over to Bunny and crouched down next to him, and Emily and Jamie followed suit. They surrounded the Guardian with a tight ring of hugs.
Send 🚼for my muse to babysit a child version of yours
@childerdancehydejekyll
Pitch stared in disbelief at the now tiny blonde haired mortal. Perhaps dabbling with that spell book as a bad idea. Now he was going to have to look after her until he worked out away to turn her back to her adult form or the spell wore off. And he was not sure if the latter would even happen.
“Olalla please stop chasing the mares! If you keep scaring them like that they will turn back into dream sand!” Pitch said as he ran after the small mortal.
Pitch relaxes as he was sucking along the winter spirit’s thin,pale hips since he could hear the blood rushing throw threw the vein.If he could just have a bite from him then he wouldn’t be suffering then he was already was!Yet he couldn’t.Pitch didn’t want to do it.He NEED to control of.No matter on how tempting it was to take a bite from those hips.
I know you've got a massive to-do list and I will totally take your displeasure at this request, but if/when you return to the Pitch Perspectives, I really hope you'll consider doing one of Jack being possessed in the lair and Pitch making the light with his body. I actually enjoy Pitch's terror and fear more than Jack's (which makes me a terrible awful person).
Massive to-do list, I actually have *more* projects now than I did about two months ago! I don't know how that happened, I was sure I was going to take like a month off writing, and now it's like, goodbye month off writing, you sure seemed like a good idea. Lol.
And omg, enjoying whatever character's terror/fear is fine! The Pitch Perspectives are a little way off, I am definitely taking a break from the blackice ship for a little while; but I will keep your request in mind, anon!
