His Nightmare Queen (Pitch Black x Reader)

41: Horizon

It’s graphic at first but hey it gets better.

*June*

You could not forget the sensation of the bathwater sloshing over you, sinking you in further. The reddening color was like wine darkening until it was nearly black and viscous like that which spilled from you. The sickening remembrance of the way your lower abdomen contracted until it pressed down flatter burned in your mind like the hot slick blood smearing further across your flesh and washing over you. Your crossed arms embraced the upper half of your unclothed form as though to cover yourself even though you were very much alone. No one was by your side this time. Your gaze was as empty as the blank ceiling it met. The thickening crimson bathwater rose up higher toward the edges of the tub, licking up your chest and throat to your chin. Another gush of red-black matter that was both yours and not struggled to cling on and slipped away into the waters that added to the somewhat comforting warmth swallowing you whole. Blinded ultimately by the fiery twist within and lost in the numbness of headspace, you lowered yourself the rest of the way down. Legs splayed, you closed your eyes and slowly dipped under the heavy blood-tainted waters that filled the tub so it engulfed your submerged body fully. The last thing you remember from this was the quiet of the warm waters flooding your ears. That way, you disappeared with what once could have been yours to feel as though the two of you could be one again at last.

When you awoke suddenly dry heaving from yet another nightmare much like that one, Pitch always had to remind you that it was not real. You would shoot up in bed, scrambling to the side and leaning over the edge to gag at the memory of what had felt far too real. The empty contents of your stomach from the inability to keep much down during the last few weeks left nothing to come up but the welling tears in your eyes. When you were not retching dryly, you were awakened by your own screams. Every time you cried out in fear of the next nightmare becoming true, Pitch would reach for you. As you pressed an arm against yourself to make sure what you had both created was still in place, he would be shushing you until you would finally reach back and cling to him before your quiet sobs shook you back to sleep.

You would still consider yourself sane if you had taken up the thought of scratching tally marks into the wall for every night of your rising night terrors. Then again, the last three months worth of these bad dreams would have had you filling up an entire wall already. Three months of nothing but nightmares or dreamless sleep had your head throbbing each day and lethargic limbs covered in chills. Most of them were different, but each one seemed to feel slightly more real every night. It was a wonder you were not going mad after all. Pitch was at least smart enough to know what to look out for. Over the last several weeks, when you slept, he stayed up at your side. Thin taloned fingers caressing your scalp often lulled you into your rest, and he could sometimes tell when a dream was bad enough so he could wake you himself before it could get worse. For a child that had not yet taken a breath of outside air, whatever potential power they could possess was certainly draining for you. But for the Nightmare King to hate beings like the Guardians so, his self-assigned task of keeping watch over you when you could not yourself made him like your own.

Within the last few days, he took it upon himself to seek out a solution for your nightmares - the complete opposite of his usual work. You did not know how the conversation between him and Sandman had gone down (assuming there was one), but when Pitch started bringing you contained samples of golden dream sand to help you get a good night’s sleep for once, the way he got it was out of the question. Glass vials and satin pouches of the substance began helping ease your night terrors for the most part by providing good dreams that countered - but caused no harm to - the effects of the twelve-week-old heartbeat within that seemed to still show little sign of dissipating. Yet, you remained cautious of your every move.