Nearly a week went by before your life returned to normal - that is, the version of normal that was your eternity down in the lair with Pitch. Getting back on track of personal matters never felt more relieving. Another mark crossing out another day on the calendar, a rewinding of the ticking clock kept at the back of the mind, meant one less thing to worry about. Stress does turn out to do wonders on the body after all. A slight concern bubbled at the back of your mind as to whether or not you were to tell your partner of this recent scare of yours, however the fact that what you feared at first did not come true was what brushed the whole issue away.
The holiday season was drawing closer as was the official start to winter, so more than half of the Guardians were too busy on their toes making their own preparations. Mainly the rabbit was in higher charge at the moment of keeping a keen eye out for unwanted creatures such as the fearlings, but their appearances remained nearly unchartable and without expectation. The last you had seen of them was that day at the Guardians’ headquarters shortly after your engagement. You and Pitch knew to keep watch during your outings as well, but you noticed Pitch casting more glances at you than anywhere else with an expression resting somewhere between wary and protective that you could not quite read. You wished you could ask what it all meant and the reasoning behind these new actions of the monstrosities that once belonged to him, but you knew that he still had no answer. That or, if he did, it was one he was not ready to speak.
A gentle snowfall danced from the darkened clouds when you and Pitch stepped out into the cold of the night. The shadows of the mid-December twilight wrapped around you when the two of you set foot into them together. Another perk of your immortality granted by him was the enhancement of your strengths and lessened need of his assistance when his work was at your hands. That, and you noticed the requirement of far less sleep nowadays compared to the usual eight to nine mortal hours a night.
You hugged your black jacket tighter around your form at its gold buttons as you spun through the shade where you and him made your way. Your ability to move through shadow could be done with less of his guidance now. Once the two of you entered one together, you were free to let go and move freely within the dark matter according to your will. With his power running through you, your energy raced higher for you to stay within the boundaries of the shadows and step back out into the world on your own.
When both of you quietly stepped into a child’s bedroom from its dark corners is when you got the chance to test his favorite of your newer abilities. Sometimes it would still take a few tries, but this time around, you dipped your index finger into the swirling golden dream sand hovering above the child’s head with confidence. Within seconds, blackened nightmare sand was spreading its pollution throughout the mixture before taking it over entirely. You grinned back up at Pitch by your side with pride, him knowing the Queen of Nightmares had only just begun to find herself.
You both continued on through the night. From bedroom to bedroom, you managed to have a successful evening of delivering nightmares to mortal humans of various ages in the small town you had traveled to together. Each and every time, your advantage of invisibility to those who did not know of your existence was used for you to get close enough to produce another corruption of a dream. You did so without the aid of the Nightmare King to provide his touch nor a handful of his own sands for you. Every instance, you smiled back at him with even more excitement at such achievement. Almost every time, his look at you warmed in response.
The first time he did not return the uplifting look was not so worrisome.
“Is everything alright?” You asked him. His glare was colder, eyeing you up and down as if examining your full form and trying to use his stare to dig beneath the covering that your jacket, leggings, and combat boots provided, in search of something that did not appear to be lust. At your words, his look softened and he snapped back into straighter posture with his arms crossed.
“Everything’s fine,” he replied assuringly.
Another transition into the shadows sunk you and him down beneath the dark of that child’s bed without further pressing. Within seconds, you and Pitch were slipping into the calm of another bedroom. The same ordeal went down. You outstretched an arm to reach the tips of your fingers into the soft substance that was Sandman’s dream sand. Blackness began swallowing the dream whole from where you impaled the shape. When the bright gold color disappeared and began twisting into a new form that made the small boy writhe under his covers, you pulled away and watched with the same amazement at yourself that you held onto with each go. You were not going to get tired of this any time soon.
Pitch was yet again in a zone of his own when you swung around to face him for his praise. Your proudness fell at the sight of his stare lowered from your eyes and lost in clouded-over vision as if gazing straight through you. With his jaw resting on one fist propped up on the arm crossed over his chest, you formed the same crinkle in your brow that was already shown upon his face.
“Is something bothering you?” You question him again. He looked back up from the outline of your figure.
“Why do you say that?”
“I dunno, you just…” you shook your head. You were overthinking again, surely. You had done so last week, you were clearly doing it again tonight. “Maybe it’s just me.”
After completing your rounds, the two of you set out into the wintery night from the privacy of the indoors belonging to the resting mortals. You and Pitch walked side by side down an empty street under the dark of the overcast sky. Snowflakes continued falling down from above, sticking to patches of grass in front of gardens and upon the black of your winter cloakings. The sidewalks and roads were clear of white powder but wet with slush and melted snow. A chilled breeze brushed past your face against the warmth of your cheeks as you walked under rows of streetlights followed by empty spaces of shadow in between each pool of yellow light. Your hands were shoved down in your pockets to warm them as you watched flakes of crystalline snow flurry into the black feathers of Pitch’s high collar until they got caught in the downy material whenever you glanced up at him.
The both of you walked in silence. You awaited with patience the moment you would be gingerly dipped back into the shadows to step back into the lair for a few hour nap at least. It was not unusual for Pitch to go on long strolls, be it with you or alone, but most of the time it indicated a desire to clear one’s mind. You were fairly quick to catch on to the way his stare remained straight ahead rather than the normal of checking back down at your figure. With a huff, you decided to be the first to point it out again.
“You know, if there is something on your mind then I think we should tal-”
“When were you going to tell me you thought you were with a child?” He had stepped in front of you to stop you in your tracks upon interrupting you. You froze in place at his words, him so close to you that you had to tilt your chin up to see his face.
“I…” You were at a loss of words after being caught off guard. Your eyes darted all around you under the dim glow of the street lamp bent over above you. Apparently this was not going to wait until the two of you returned home. “You saw the…”
“Do we not live in the same dwelling?” Pitch spoke again, unamused.
You blinked. “We…” You continued searching for the right words as the snowfall slowed to a light flurry. A dark alleyway sat to your right in between two apartment complexes on the dreary street empty of life. You just wanted to head home at this point. It only occurred to you at this moment that you were not even sure what part of the world you were in at the moment, but your best guess based on the architecture was somewhere within Europe.
Pitch remained in front of you, waiting for some kind of an explanation. It was not like you were never planning on bringing up the topic, but you were planning instead on being the first one to say it to him rather than the other way around. How in the world did he even figure out about your little moment to yourself that you had alone in the bathroom last week? Perhaps your fear of it was too potent that its strength was overbearing to not be sensed. That, or you should learn to improve on your skills with hiding items rather than chucking them in a bin and pretending they were no longer there. You closed your eyes momentarily to take a breath before collecting yourself.
“Look,” you restarted when reopening your vision. “I had a bit of a scare, okay? I thought that I was, but it turns out I wasn’t. It was just a little overreaction.”
“And what was it that made you believe you were?” Pitch wondered aloud, frown deepening. As if this could not get any more personal.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind in the past month, I haven’t exactly been able to keep track of…stuff.” What are you, twelve?
“Even though I said to you before that it can’t happen?” Pitch’s demanding tone then lowered into a more eased voice with the drop of his shoulders. “(Y/n), you know that you don’t have to worry about these things.”
You stood still as he reached out with the extent of an arm and gingerly grazed your jawline with the backs of his knuckles to soothe you. You did not even realize your discomfort had led you to the same trembling you had experienced during last week’s scare until it started dying down at his touch. You inhaled deeply again, also hushing your tone to mirror the calm.
“I know,” you murmured. “I wanted to be absolutely sure.”
“And are you sure now?”
With the pressing of your lips together, you shrugged your shoulders and nodded. “...I’m sorry.”
Pitch’s hand fell from your jawline. “You’ve done nothing wrong that requires an apology.”
“I should have told you sooner is all.”
“It’s fine,” he reminded. That’s when he returned to your side and began guiding you at a slow walk again with one hand ghosting over your upper back. “We should be on our way then.”
You started walking with him in the return of the silence, but paused again to turn to him once more. “What if the opposite had happened?” You spoke up more sternly, your internal thoughts taking over your mouth. “What if it turned out that I was…? What would you say then?”
“(Y/n),” Pitch stopped you hastily. Golden eyes were daggers that hovered above you and threatened to slice through any further words you could have spat. You held your tongue at the sight of his look telling you that this conversation was over without having to say it directly. “We’re going home.”
No longer wanting to go on with this chat anyway, you kept your mouth shut to avoid potential arguing. You both went on walking toward the next shadow at the end of the street where the yellow lighting from the street lamps no longer reached. Before the two of you could step into the nearing shadow to vanish together into the night, the darkened alleyway at your right revealed the slightest movement captured by the corner of your sight. You froze momentarily against the Nightmare King’s guiding hand between your shoulder blades and snapped your head to the side to make sure you were not seeing things that were not actually there.
A small rounded form of shadow, like a ball of darkness with beady yellow eyes boring into your soul, curled around the corner and zipped into disappearance. Your eyes widened as a little gasp entered your lungs.
“Did you see that?” You asked the Nightmare King beside you before he could question why you had stopped moving with him again.
“What now?” He glanced around, having not caught sight of what you had witnessed and no longer having the chance to see it. You shrunk back. The mini panic that had only begun to boil up had already died to a simmer and was still cooling back to normal. You were too on edge already to want to stir things further anyway. One of the safest choices would be for you to head back home to the lair where you were already going. With a pivot, you turned back to Pitch and gave another shrug to pretend that nothing happened other than your tired eyes causing you to envision the impossible.
“...Nevermind.”