His Nightmare Queen (Pitch Black x Reader)

37: Denial

*April*

“(Y/n)...” Pitch’s voice echoed past your ear in a wavering murmur somewhere between your state of half-consciousness. You could barely hear him as you faded out from your rest and into reality. “(Y/n), are you awake?”

Your eyes were still shut, but your mind brought to light where you were the rest of the way. Your body lay flat on your stomach in bed, arms tucked under your silky pillow and heavy covers embracing you in warmth. You figured if you remained as still and as silent as possible, he would assume otherwise and stop asking. The last few weeks of getting either no sleep at all or full nights of drifting in and out of night terrors was not made up by last night’s taste of an empty dreamless state. Your pounding headache from your clear lack of rest said it all.

“Darling…” 

You nearly opened your eyes just to roll them at Pitch. “Mnph.” You rolled over to your side with a muffled groan, hoping he’d give up already and let you sleep in. There was no reason for him to be waking you up so early after so little rest you felt you had gotten. Regardless of needing far less hours nowadays compared to when you were mortal, you still preferred when the new requirement was fulfilled. 

“Do you realize how long you’ve been asleep?” The Nightmare King tried again. You let out a long breath. Apparently, there was no winning him over this morning. 

“Not long enough,” you grumbled back. 

“Darling, you’ve been in bed thirteen hours,” Pitch stated. “Is that not enough?”

Your brows knitted together, eyes still unopening. If you had gone to bed at around midnight last night, then it was not morning after all. Granted, sleeping well into the afternoon was not something new for either of you. Oversleeping as an immortal, however, instead of gaining the typical three to four hours, was new. Then again, so were the recent unsettling dreams causing you to lose sleep in the first place. Your head was simply finding a way to catch up. Rolling back over again in the opposite direction to face away from where Pitch was sitting up at your side, you groaned through your tiredness again.

“Gimme another thirteen hours and I’ll let you know.”

Pitch, a typical late sleeper at times himself, knew he could not produce a good enough reason for you to rise for the day. He was thoughtful enough to leave you to lay a little longer and rest your eyes. You did eventually get yourself up within the next hour to freshen up. After all, you were going to have to be ready for tomorrow’s plans.

Being that Easter would be in two days, that marks tomorrow as the send off at the Warren. Bunnymund is to be making sure each completely decorated egg is accounted for and not left behind as they are all headed to their assigned continent. Technically, you were not required to be present for such an event tomorrow, but you know it would please the rabbit being that a small portion of those eggs being checked off were painted by you. Pitch could care less as long as he knew of your whereabouts - you had already spent half of the last six weeks bouncing back and forth between the lair’s caves and Bunnymund’s tunnels every other opportunity you took. The experience was making you wonder if you were going to be recommended to give some of your spare time to North in the winter season when it would be time to wrap presents. One more day at the Warren could not hurt.

When you mustered enough willpower to get out of bed for the day, your throbbing headache spun your mind enough that you had to sit back for an extra minute to slow your dizzying eyesight. You could feel the bags under your eyes when you rubbed them free of the overnight crusted bits in the corners. The obvious dark circles under your eyes that you could not yet catch another reflection of were too puffy for you to not feel at your fingertips. When you finally got up successfully, you left your black nightshirt on and opted to pull a short silky robe of the same shade over it that hung above your knees. You crossed the article over your chest and fastened the tie that squeezed tight around your waist. Today did not feel like a day for the Nightmare Queen to readily wander her kingdom in any of her gifted dark gowns or gilded jewels.