Snowflakes And Shadow Crowns

Before the Storm

   "I can't keep doing this." Pitch groaned irritably at himself as his rubbed his temples. Nonstop, ever since Jack had gone missing, he had done absolutely nothing unless it was one of six things, which consisted of:

  A.) Worrying about Jack.

  B.) Looking for Jack.

  C.) Trying to recall if he did anything that would make Jack hate him.

  D.) Hating Jack.

  E.) Thinking needlessly about Jack, and

  F.) Feeling rather abandoned by Jack.

  The last one being the main reason why he was also silently hating himself. Pitch didn't want to admit it to his own mind, hell, he didn't even want to think it was true, but, considering these rather frustrating circumstances, there was no denying the fact that he truly did miss Jack.

  Or the fact that he was jealous of Jamie, and the Guardians, and the moon, and the damn wind because if there was one thing that they all knew that he didn't, it was simply Jack. Where he was, why he went there, what he was doing, how he was feeling; they knew his perfections and his flaws, his very essence and personality, and he simply did not. Pitch wasn't afraid of admitting that he felt betrayed by the younger, after all, the boy had forced his way into his life and, just when he had finally started to think they could get along, he just disappeared. Feeling betrayed is reasonably understandable, but he'd be damned if he ever confessed to having feelings such as jealousy. Because he was most certainly not some sort of love-struck maiden. Pitch frowned.

  Love...? It was a ludicrous idea, one that had never struck him till now. Pitch scoffed harshly and shook his head.

  "No, no, no." He growled. "I'm not even friends with that annoying little twit, let alone in love with him..." He said aloud to convince himself of the fact, but even then he wasn't too sure why he felt so uncertain. He was the bad guy; he wasn't supposed to be indecisive, but the more he tried to tell himself that he hated Jack, the less he seemed to believe himself. The thought that he left because he'd decided he was done with him crossed his mind suddenly, making Pitch purse his lips as he felt his stomach grow uneasy. The very idea that Jack hated him made his lifeless heart clench. The man sighed.

  Really, where have you run off to, Jack Frost?

---

  Pitch swirled around his quaint kitchenette in a dancing sort of way, grabbing different tiny bowls or spoons off of his black marble counters and then proceeding to make himself a glass of tea.

  "Jack is gone!~" He sung aloud to himself in a chippy voice. "Frost is GONE!~" Continuing to prance around the space, he smiled with sharp teeth as he finished up and began putting certain things away.

  "The brat is G.O.N.E." He shouted happily as he did a final twirl. "GONE!"  Finding himself back at the counter with his tea cup, all of the things used to make it cleaned and back in their designated places, Pitch's smile quickly faded into something more somber. His voice echoed throughout the dark, underground chambers.

  Gone. It said, over and over, and after a moment it seemed to turn into a question, almost taunting him.

  "Jack is gone." Pitch whispered to himself, suddenly not feeling in the mood for tea.

---

  "Hmm..." Pitch hummed to himself, sitting in his library with his thin framed reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. "Let's see." With nimble fingers, he flipped through the pages of a dictionary.

  "G...F...No, oh wait, there's C...ah, here!" He exclaimed as he found the section labeled B and searched for himself. He cleared his throat.

  "Alright, Bogeyman." He began. "Also spelled, Bogeyman, Boogeyman, Boogerman, Boogieman...Wait, what?" He frowned. "Boogerman!? What the hell do these insolent mortals think I am!?" Pitch scoffed, but continued.

  "Hmph, anyway. Bogeyman," Pitch chuckled wickedly. "An imaginary--I see how it is--evil character of supernatural powers, especially a mythical Hobgoblin said to carry off..." Pitch trailed off, letting out an irritated huff of breath.

  "Hobgoblin? Really?" He hissed, feeling rather insulted as he threw the book onto the table; the book flipping to a random page as he did so. "I am no Hobgoblin." He pouted to himself. Pitch glared at the offending book only to have something catch his eye. Something that only could have happened by bat shit crazy chance, or because someone was teasing him. It was an entry in section J.

  "Jack Frost." He mumbled quietly as he adjusted his glasses to read what it had to say. "Noun. Frost of freezing cold...personified." Pitch frowned, feeling rather bad for the missing sprite. Although mortals eventually stopped believing in him because they, 'got too old,' or they just simply stopped caring about what was lurking beneath their beds, at least he was something; imaginary or not.

  All they thought of Jack was that he was the season of Winter, and although that wasn't entirely false, it meant that no human who didn't even care to consider that spirits did exist would only ever and always believe Jack to be nothing more than a figurative concept of language. Not an imaginary hobgoblin, not a children's story like the Guardians were, and not even something to whip children into shape or make them better as people overtime; Jack was nothing to them but an easy way to describe the cold.

  And for some reason that felt more than just wrong.

---

  Needless to say, Pitch was exhausted. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried to make it seemed like he didn't care or was glad Jack was gone, he always ended up in a sour mood come morning. Flopping down onto the black silk sheets of his degraded king sized canopy bed, he let out a groan as he rolled over onto his side.

  "Honestly." He mumbled to himself, the heaviness of sleep creeping up on the weary king as he tucked his arm beneath his head, a thousand thoughts lazily running through his mind, almost all of them consisting of Jack.

---

A/N

Sooo I wrote this chapter and the last at the same time and just decided to split them up. Right now I'm kind of Developing Pitch's feelings for Jack and we're gonna see how he's going to deal with that, and then on Jack's end it's the same, only he's coming to terms with it much faster so it's quickly going to go from, "I'm pretty sure I love Pitch," to, "I know I love Pitch, but now I can't let the Guardians know," because Tooth is already hot on his trail and, as the summary said, Jack is going to have to choose eventually...but whoever will he really choose in the end?

You're all gonna say he's going to choose Pitch. Typical love story right? Well, I can't tell you, but what I can say is that you're not wrong but you are most certainly not right either >:D If you've read any of my other works you guys KNOW I have all of the plot twist pain in my fingers and I bleed it onto the screen through my keys. You're very welcome to all of you who I have killed in the past because of that~ <3

I'm gonna end it. I had good fun on this too, and we're going pretty strong, so see ya in the next chapter, yeah?